HARVARD  STUDIES 

IN  COMPARATIVE    LITERATURE 

VOLUMES  ISSUED 
I 

THREE  PHILOSOPHICAL  POETS 

LUCRETIUS,    DANTE,   AND  GOETHE 

BY  GEORGE  SANTAYANA 

II 

CHIVALRY   IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

CHAUCER,   MALORY,   AND  SHAKESPEARE 

BY  WILLIAM  HENRY  SCHOFIELD 

III 

THE  COMEDIES   OF  HOLBERG 

BY  OSCAR  JAMES  CAMPBELL,  JR. 


HARVARD  STUDIES 
IN  COMPARATIVE  LITERATURE 

FOUNDED  BY  THE  GENERAL  EDITOR 
WILLIAM  HENRY  SCHOFIELD 

PROFESSOR  OF  COMPARATIVE  LITERATURE 
IN  HARVARD   UNIVERSITY 

III 

THE  COMEDIES  OF  HOLBERG 


HARVARD  STUDIES  IN  COMPARATIVE  LITERATURE 
VOLUME  III 

THE  COMEDIES  OF 
HOLBERG 

BY 

OSCAR  JAMES  CAMPBELL,  Jr. 

ASSISTANT  PROFESSOR  OF  ENGUSH  IN   THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON  :  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1914 


COPYRIGHT,    1914.,  DY   HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


D.    B.   UPDIKE,  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS,   BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  is  the  fruit  of  investigations 
begun  while  I  was  a  student  in  the  Graduate 
School  of  Arts  and  Sciences  in  Harvard  University, 
and  continued  while  I  was  a  Sheldon  Fellow  of  Har- 
vard in  Copenhagen,  Paris,  and  Oxford. 

I  am  indebted  for  information  and  counsel  to 
many  professors  in  the  University  of  Copenhagen, 
and  to  other  Danish  scholars,  most  of  all,  however, 
to  Dr.  Georg  Brandes  and  Dr.Vilhelm  Andersen, 
whose  writings  on  Holberg  are  of  peculiar  value 
and  whose  conversation  I  found  particularly  stimu- 
lating during  my  residence  in  Denmark.  Mr.  Carl 
Petersen,  Under- Librarian  of  the  Royal  Library  in 
Copenhagen,  who  is  now  publishing  a  definitive 
edition  of  Holberg 's  works,  also  gave  me  the  be- 
nefit of  his  expert  knowledge  on  various  points,  and 
I  profited  by  definite  suggestions  from  Mr.  Alfred 
Glahn,  Second  Master  of  the  Academy  at  Sor0,  and 
Professor  Verner  Dahlerup. 

My  colleague.  Professor  Karl  Young,  has  helped 
me  by  his  acute  criticism  of  the  book  throughout, 
and  my  former  teacher.  Professor  Kittredge,  in  spite 
of  the  enormous  demands  upon  his  time,  has  read 
it  most  carefully  in  proof,  to  my  great  advantage. 


vi  PREFACE 

Professor  C.  H.  C.  Wright  has  also  kindly  read  the 
proofs.  To  Professor  Schofield  I  am  under  the  heavi- 
est obligations.  He  first  suggested  to  me  the  sub- 
ject of  the  work,  and  during  the  entire  progress  of 
my  researches  never  wearied  in  his  interest.  Early, 
he  indicated  many  fruitful  lines  of  enquiry,  and 
ensured  for  me  the  aid  of  Scandinavian  scholars. 
Recently,  he  has  scrutinized  the  whole  manuscript 
and  various  proofs  of  the  volume  with  very  gen- 
erous attention.  Only  he  can  appreciate  how  large 
a  part  he  has  played  in  bringing  it  into  being  in  its 
present  form. 


O.  J.C,  JR. 


Madison^  December  3,  1913 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION  Page  3 

Holberg's  comedies  reflect  his  cosmopolitan  interests  and  supply 
valuable  material  for  a  study  in  comparative  literature :  Examina- 
tion of  his  sources  a  means  of  appraising  his  originality  :  Main  in- 
fluences exerted  on  him  by  Moliere,  tlie  coTmnedia  deW arte,  and 
English  satire. 

HOLBERG'S  LIFE  Page  9 

Family,  environment,  and  life  in  Bergen :  Study  at  the  University  of 
Copenhagen :  Journeys  to  Holland,  England,  and  Germany :  ' '  Ex- 
traordinary "  Professor :  Trip  to  Rome  -via  Paris :  Its  influence  upon 
Oliver  Goldsmith:  Eifect  of  travel  upon  Holberg:  Introduction 
to  International  Laiv :  Professor  of  Metaphysics :  Andreas  H0yer 
and  Holberg's  first  satires  :  Peder  Paars :  Enmities  made  by  work: 
Danish  drama  in  Copenhagen  :  Holberg  writes  comedies  :  Dramatic 
material  in  Peder  Paars:  Rapid  composition  of  plays,  1721-24: 
Plan  for  investigating  uni\'ersity  a  threat  to  Holberg :  Attempt  to 
have  plays  presented  in  Paris  :  First  Aiitobiografihical  E/iistle  not 
an  apology :  Dramatic  company  obtains  a  royal  pension  :  Fire  of  1 728 
and  accession  of  Christian  VI  end  dramatic  performances :  Holberg 
written  out :  Professor  of  History  :  Literary  production  during  the 
reign  of  Christian  VI :  History  of  Denmark ;  0/iuscula  Latina ;  De- 
scrifition  of  Bergen :  JViels  Klim  ;  published  in  Leipzig ;  its  great 
success :  History  of  the  Jeivish  Peofile :  Moral  Reflections :  After 
1746  his  plays  again  performed :  Connection  with  new  company  not 
close :  Opening  of  the  Royal  Theatre  :  New  comedies  composed : 
Six  of  inferior  merit :  Made  a  baron :  Disposition  of  his  estate : 
Death. 

HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  Page  63 

The  four  types'of  comedy  which  he  composed  :  £ras?nus  Monta- 
nus  a  typical  domestic  comedy  of  character :  Jefifie  fiaa  Bjerget 
analyzed:  The  Ele\>enth  of  June  as  an  example  of  his  comedies  of 
intrigue  :  Each  of  his  comedies  of  manners  individual:  His  indebt- 


viii  CONTENTS 

edness  to  one  early  Danish  play :  Inspiration  drawn  largely  from 
abroad. 

HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE  Page  91 

Moliere  Holberg's  greatest  source  of  inspiration  :  Domestic  come- 
dies of  both  aUke ;  in  composition  of  the  family  ;  in  comic  hero's 
relation  to  the  family  :  Monsieur  de  Pourceaugnac  and  The  Elev- 
enth of  June :  Comic  decoration  of  the  two  authors  similar :  Le 
Malade  Imaginaire  and  The  Busy  Man:  Likenesses  in  bits  of 
incidental  comedy :  LegreUe's  conception  of  Holberg  one-sided : 
Holberg's  spirit  original:  Characters  founded  on  those  of  Moli&re 
become  Danish  :  Moliere' s  artifices  become  in  Holberg  devices  for 
illuminating  character:  Holberg  satirizes  manners,  not  morals: 
Undramatic  essays  on  manners :  Holberg's  realism  uncompromis- 
ing. 

HOLBERG  AND  THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE 

Page  139 
History  of  Italian  comedians  in  Paris :  Gherardi's  collection :  Dia- 
logue in  French:  Stereotyped  nature  of  the  plot :  Holberg's  similar 
plots:  Henrich  and  Arlequin;  their  disguises;  their  lazzi:  Spirit  of 
physical  farce  in  Holberg's  plays:  Henrich's  originality:  PerniUe 
and  Colombine :  Pierrot  and  Arv :  The  latter  becomes  a  Danish 
chore  boy  :  Leander  and  Leonora  and  amoroso  and  amoroso :  Comic 
details  borrowed  from  Gherardi :  The  Funeral  of  Danish  Comedy 
and  Le  De/iart  des  Comediens :  Ulysses  von  Ithacia  most  completely 
saturated  with  Italian  spirit. 

HOLBERG  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE  OTHER 
THAN  MOLIERE  Page  199 

Characters  in  Holberg  which  belong  to  old  French  comic  traditions : 
Le  Grondeur  and  Don  Ranudo :  Christmas  F.ve  and  Colin-Mail- 
lard :  Influence  of  Boursault ;  of  Legrand :  TTie  Fickle-minded  Wo- 
man and  Destouches's  L^ Irresolu:  The  Lying-in  Chamber  and 
Recueil  General  des  Coquets  de  V  Accouchee:  Invisible  Lovers  and 
Scarron's  Roman  Comique. 


CONTENTS  ix 

HOLBERG  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE  Page  235 
Holberg's  account  of  his  stay  in  England  in  his  autobiography : 
Reasons  for  unsatisfactory  nature  of  the  narrative :  Proof  of  his 
admiration  for  EngHsh  life  and  thought:  Holberg  and  non-jurors: 
Hearne  and  Dr.  Hickes:  Jeppe  of  the  Hill  and  Christopher  Sly: 
Holberg  and  Ben  Jonson :  His  opportunities  for  knowing  the  work 
of  Jonson :  Similarity  of  spirit  of  the  two  men :  Holberg  and  Far- 
quhar:  The  Political  TznA^r  founded  on  The  Political  Upholsterer: 
Erasmus  Montanus  and  an  essay  in  The  Tatler :  Holberg  and  Addi- 
son: Both  often  satirize  the  same  foibles  :  Both  urbane  in  their  ridi- 
cule: Holberg's  sojourn  in  England  formative. 

HOLBERG'S  RELATIONS  TO  GERMAN  AND  LATIN 
LITERATURE  Page  289 

Holberg  knew  little  German  literature  :  Four  Satires  of  Laurem- 
berg ;  their  influence :  The  Political  Tinker  shows  knowledge  of  con- 
ditions in  Hamburg:  The  Parish  of  Saint  James  in  Ufiroar  :  Hor- 
ribilicribrifax  and  Jacob  von  Tyboe  :  Ulysses  von  Ithacia  a  satire  of 
Haufit-  und  Staatsactionen  and  German  opera:  Holberg  admired 
Plautus  :  The  Mostellaria  and  A  Ghost  in  the  House :  The  Pseudo- 
lus  andJJiedrich,  the  Terror  of  Mankind :  Pyrgopolinices,  Thraso, 
and  Jacob  von  Tyboe :  Holberg  merely  transcribed  Plautus. 

HOLBERG'S  GENIUS  Page  315 

None  of  Holberg's  forbears  in  literature  Scandinavian :  His  literary 
sense  realistic :  His  conception  of  character  picturesque  i-ather  than 
profound :  Tends  to  become  photographic :  Vulgar  facts  symbols  of 
universally  interesting  situations :  Holberg's  place  permanent  in  the 
literature  of  the  world. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY  Page  323 

NOTES  Page  357 


INTRODUCTION 


Wherever  a  reference  mark  occure  in  the  text, 
a  note  will  be  found  at  the  end  of  the  book 


INTRODUCTION 

THOUGH  Ludvig  Holberg  has  been  variously 
called  the  father  of  Danish  history,  Danish 
philosophy,  Danish  drama,  and  the  Danish  national 
theatre,  it  is  as  the  father  of  Danish  comedy  that  he  is 
most  frequently  exalted.  His  comedies  are  to-day  the 
most  popular  of  any  presented  in  Copenhagen.  Even 
now,  so  long  after  their  original  production,  they  af- 
fect the  sentiments  of  the  youth  of  Denmark  in  much 
the  same  way  that  Schiller's  tragedies  affect  the  sen- 
timents of  the  youth  of  Germany.  Since  Holberg's 
comedies  are  felt  by  the  Danes  to  be  distinctively 
national,  they  have  peculiar  interest  for  students 
of  Northern  civilization.  In  addition,  however,  they 
merit  careful  examination  by  all  literary  historians 
because  of  their  close  relationship  with  other  Eu- 
ropean writings  of  a  similar  sort.  The  works  of  few 
men  afford  such  ample  material  for  an  instructive 
study  in  comparative  literature. 

Danish  drama,  when  Holberg  began  to  write,  had 
no  traditions. The  circumstances  of  his  life  gave  him 
unusual  opportunities  to  become  familiar  with  for- 
eign productions,  and  he  wisely  sought  models  for 
his  new  ventures  abroad.  His  youth  and  early  man- 
hood were  spent  in  almost  incessant  travel.  He  vis- 


4  INTRODUCTION 

ited  Holland,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy,  besides 
spending  two  years  in  England.  His  occupations, 
moreover,  in  these  various  countries  were  not  merely 
those  of  a  special  student :  he  possessed  always  the 
varied  interests  of  a  keen  man  of  the  world.  Even 
as  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Copenhagen,  he 
taught  successively  metaphysics,  Latin,  and  history, 
and  finally  became  Treasurer  of  the  Corporation.  As 
a  scholar,  he  produced  works  on  international  law, 
finance,  and  history.  As  a  man  of  letters,  he  wrote 
satires,  biographies,  and  moral  essays,  as  well  as 
plays.  As  a  citizen,  he  helped  to  found  the  National 
Theatre,  built  up  a  large  private  fortune,  was  made 
a  baron,  and  bequeathed  his  whole  estate  to  the 
support  of  a  national  academy. 

Of  all  Holberg's  literary  work,  his  comedies  reflect 
best  his  cosmopolitan  interests.  The  object  of  this 
volume  is  to  consider  these  comedies  in  relation  to 
their  sources,  and  to  show  thereby  how  the  author's 
distinctive  dramatic  qualities  developed  through  his 
imitation  of  foreign  models.  Numerous  as  the  books 
on  Holberg  have  been,  no  study  with  such  a  purpose 
has  previously  been  made.  Those  who  have  hitherto 
treated  his  relation  to  comic  tradition  have  adopted 
one  of  two  critical  methods.  Either,  like  Legrelle, 
they  have  examined  his  indebtedness  to  one  source 


INTRODUCTION  5 

only,  and  have  therefore  overemphasized  the  im- 
portance of  a  single  influence;  or,  like  Olaf  Skavlan, 
they  have  been  content  to  give  lists,  more  or  less 
complete,  of  his  mere  comic  devices,  without  draw- 
ing inferences  from  the  similarities  they  indicate, 
and  without  discussing  larger  phases  of  dramatic 
construction.  In  the  following  study  I  shall  aim  to 
make  a  consideration  of  sources  the  means  of  ap- 
praising and  describing  impartially  Holberg's  origi- 
nality. 

The  influences  which  did  most  to  determine  Hol- 
berg's conception  of  comedy  were  those  of  Moliere, 
of  the  commedia  deW  arte  (in  the  form  which  it  as- 
sumed in  Gherardi's  collection  of  plays,  produced  in 
the  late  seventeenth  century),  and  of  certain  kinds 
of  English  comedy  and  satire.  I  shall  try  to  show  that 
Holberg  learned  from  Moliere  many  of  his  methods 
for  the  grouping  and  exposition  of  character ;  that  he 
derived  from  the  commedia  deW  arte  much  of  the 
comedy  incidental  to  his  plots,  together  with  the  fig- 
ures that  served  as  vehicles  for  it ;  and  that  he  allowed 
English  comedy  and  satire  to  determine,  in  large  mea- 
sure, the  scope  and  the  temper  of  his  own.  I  shall 
point  out,  moreover,  for  the  sake  of  completeness,  the 
considerably  less  important  suggestions  that  he  ob- 
tained from  French  literature  other  than  Moliere, 


6  INTRODUCTION 

from  Latin  comedy,  and  from  his  slight  acquaint- 
ance with  German  literature. 

The  combination  of  these  various  elements  into  a 
unified  and  original  product  could  have  been  accom- 
plished only  by  a  man  of  profound  originality  as  well 
as  large  cosmopolitan  interests.  Holberg  gained  his 
broad  intelligence  by  steadily  doing  his  utmost  to 
become  an  intellectual  citizen  of  Europe  as  a  whole. 
Any  thorough  treatment,  then,  of  the  manner  in 
which  he  adapted  foreign  literary  ideas  to  his  own 
purposes  must  be  preceded  by  a  record  of  the  events 
of  his  Hfe. 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE 


CHAPTER  I 

HOLBERG'S    LIFE 
I 

THOUGH  destined  to  be  the  first  to  give  na- 
tional literary  consciousness  to  Denmark,  Hol- 
berg  was  a  native  of  Norway.  He  was  born  in  Ber- 
gen, on  the  third  of  December,  1684.  Yet  Bergen  in 
the  seventeenth  century  was  not  typically  Norwe- 
gian. It  was  one  of  the  four  historic  trading  stations 
of  the  Hanseatic  League,  and  had  a  highly  organ- 
ized, self-sujfficing  colony  of  German  commercial 
agents.*  Merchants  of  many  other  nationalities  also 
assembled  there  to  procure  whatever  part  of  the 
trade  these  Germans  could  not  monopolize,  and, 
when  they  became  permanent  residents  of  the  city, 
often  married  Norwegian  women,  so  that  in  Hol- 
berg's  time  few  children  of  his  birthplace  could 
assert  that  all  four  of  their  grandparents  were  of 
Scandinavian  stock. 

The  spirit  of  Bergen  in  the  latter  part  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  had  become  distinctly  cosmopoli- 
tan. The  sons  of  prosperous  tradesmen  went  abroad, 
usually  both  to  Holland  and  to  England,  where  in- 
tellectual life  was  more  enlightened  and  stimulating 
than  at  home.  Perhaps  as  a  result  of  this  situation, 
the  inhabitants  seem  to  have  been  more  eager  and 


10  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

alert  than  those  either  of  the  rest  of  Norway  or  of 
Denmark .  * 

Ludvig  Holberg  ^^'as  the  twelfth  and  youngest 
child  of  gifted  parents.  His  mother,  Karen  Lem,  was 
a  granddaughter  of  Bishop  Ludvig  Munthe,  and  a 
woman  of  keen  intelligence.  His  father  w  as  an  army 
officer,  w^ho  had  risen  from  a  mere  private  to  the  rank 
of  first  lieutenant,  an  achievement  by  no  means 
easy  or  usual  in  those  days,  when  almost  all  Norwe- 
gian regiments  were  officered  by  Germans.  What 
is  more,  he  had  seen  much  of  the  world.  He  had 
served  in  the  armies  of  Malta  and  Venice,  and  had 
taken  an  extensive  journey  through  Italy  on  foot.  He 
died  when  Ludvig  was  but  two  years  old,  leaving 
his  family  with  a  comfortable  inheritance,  which 
was,  however,  almost  completely  lost  by  fire  in  1686. 

As  a  boy,  Holberg  went  first  to  the  German  gram- 
mar school  in  Bergen  and  afterwards  to  the  Latin 
school  there.  Danish  must  have  seemed  to  him  fit 
only  for  colloquial  use.  The  great  fire  that  swept  the 
town  in  1702  destroyed  the  Latin  school  and  com- 
pelled him  to  go  to  the  University  of  Copenhagen 
a  year  earlier  than  he  had  intended.  In  spite  of  one 
long  interruption,  he  finished  his  course  at  the  end 
of  two  years,  and  took  his  final  examinations  in  the 
spring  of  1704.  Thecourse  of  study  at  the  university 
could  hardly  have  been  congenial  to  him.  Instruc- 
tion in  philosophy,  the  principal  subject,  was  given 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  11 

by  means  of  the  old  scholastic  methods,  and  students 
held  serious,  formal  debates  on  questions  like  these : 

Could  a  human  being  by  a  natural  process  turn 
into  a  pillar  of  salt?"  "Did  Jesus,  a  child  of  God, 
cry  at  all  during  his  infancy?  "  Such  pedantic  dis- 
cussions, the  solemn  futility  of  which  Holberg  was 
later  to  parody,  seemed  to  him,  even  then,  ridicu- 
lous. It  is  small  wonder,  then,  that  he  barely  passed 
his  so-called  "philosophical"  examination.*  In  the- 
ology he  obtained  honours;  but  his  intellectual  en- 
thusiasm seems  to  have  been  aroused  mainly  by 
work  in  the  modern  languages,  especially  EngHsh, 
French,  and  Italian,  which  he  studied  by  himself 
during  his  years  at  the  university. 

After  Holberg  had  taken  his  degree,  he  returned 
to  Bergen,  where  for  several  months  he  acted  as  tutor 
to  the  children  of  a  bishop,  Niels  Smidt.  This  eccle- 
siastic had  travelled  widely  in  his  youth,  and  had 
kept  a  journal  of  his  expeditions.  Holberg  read  the 
book  with  avidity,  and  it  fanned  the  flame  of  his 
desire  to  see  the  world.  Accordingly,  he  turned  what 
possessions  he  had  into  money,  and,  with  but  sixty 
rigsdaler  (about  $90)  in  his  pocket,  took  ship  for 
Amsterdam.  Although  he  must  have  spent  nearly 
a  year  in  the  Netherlands,  he  tells  us  nothing  of  his 
stay  there  except  a  few  humorous  anecdotes  to  illus- 
trate his  poverty.  On  his  return  to  Norway,  he  set- 
tled in  Christiansand,  where  an  acquaintance  of  his. 


12  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

named  Christian  Brix,  introduced  him  to  the  lead- 
ing people  of  the  place.  He  spent  the  following  win- 
ter (1705-06)  in  teaching  French,  English,  and 
Dutch. Then,  for  the  only  time  in  his  life,  he  seems 
to  have  enjoyed  the  companionship  of  young  women 
of  his  own  age.*  The  next  spring  he  went  to  Eng- 
land, where  he  spent  over  two  years,  partly  in 
Oxford  and  partly  in  London,  steeping  himself  in 
new  thought. 

From  England  Holberg  sailed  to  Copenhagen, 
where  he  soon  obtained  a  position  as  travelling  com- 
panion to  a  boy  of  a  prominent  Danish  family.  He 
took  his  young  ward  to  Dresden,  established  him 
there,  and  then  journeyed  alone  to  Leipzig,  at  that 
time  the  undisputed  intellectual  centre  of  Germany. 
From  there  he  went  to  Halle,  intent  on  seeing  the 
philosopher  Thomasius.  Though  the  latter,  he  says, 
would  talk  of  nothing  but  the  weather,  the  two 
must  have  had  many  interests  in  common  even  at 
that  time,  for  Thomasius's  influence  upon  Hol- 
berg's  early  work  was  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
man. 

Soon  after  Holberg' s  return  from  this  his  third 
journey  abroad,  in  the  spring  of  1709,  he  obtained 
a  small  stipend  in  a  foundation  for  students  called 
Borch's  College.  Whileliving  there,  in  1711,  he  pub- 
lished his  first  bit  of  historical  writing.  An  Introduc- 
tion to  European  History.  He  says  that  he  collected 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  13 

the  materials  for  this  work  in  the  Bodleian ,  although 
he  makes  haste  to  add  that  his  book  is  litde  more 
than  a  transcription  of  Puffendorf's  similar  treatise.* 
In  1713,  he  published  the  first  volume  of  an  Appen- 
dix to  Universal  History^  which  he  planned  to  be 
a  complete  description  of  all  the  governments  in  the 
civiHzed  world,  as  they  existed  in  his  time.  The  work 
was  to  consist  of  five  volumes,  but  only  the  first 
was  printed,  because  in  1714  the  young  author  was 
appointed  an ' '  extraordinary ' '  professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Copenhagen. 

This  appointment,  he  says,  was  the  king's  re- 
cognition of  a  history  of  the  reigns  of  Christian  IV 
and  Frederik  III  {An  Introduction  to  the  History  of 
Denmark  in  Previous  Centuries)^  which  Holberg  had 
sent  him  in  manuscript.  In  spite  of  Holberg's  dili- 
gent work  in  historical  scholarship  during  the  five 
years  that  he  was  a  member  of  Borch's  College,  he 
was  accused  of  indolence,  largely  because  he  neg- 
lected the  usual  scholastic  disputations  and  decla- 
mations, f  In  academic  circles  it  was  declared  scan- 
dalous that  a  man  apparently  ignorant  of  the  meth- 
ods of  scholastic  logic  and  philosophia  instrumenta- 
lis  should  have  received  a  university  appointment. 
"But,"  declares  the  defendant,"  the  fact  remains 
that  I  am  a  professor ;  and  those  who  have  other 
standards  than  the  nonsensical  jargon  of  the  school- 
men by  which  to  measure  literary  qualifications. 


14  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

have  thought  me  capable  of  discharging  effectively 
the  duties  of  my  office," 

Holberg's  position  as  extraordinary  professor 
merely  gave  him  the  right  to  the  first  vacancy  that 
might  occur  in  the  faculty.  It  did  not  in  itself  entitle 
him  to  a  salary.  But  through  the  good  offices  of  a 
privy  councillor,  Ivar  Rosencrantz,  he  was  granted 
a  special  stipend  of  one  hundred  rigsdaler  ($150) 
a  year  for  four  years,  during  which  time  he  was  to 
become  what  we  should  call  a  travelling  fellow  of 
the  university.  In  the  spring  of  1714,  therefore,  Hol- 
berg  left  Copenhagen  for  his  fourth  journey  abroad. 
He  was  at  this  time  thirty  years  old  and  a  man 
of  no  little  reputation  as  an  historian.  He  went  first 
to  Amsterdam,  then  to  Rotterdam,  Antwerp,  and 
Brussels.  At  Brussels,  however,  he  became  so  much 
alarmed  at  the  amount  of  his  travelling  expenses  that 
he  decided  to  walk  the  rest  of  the  way  to  Paris. 

He  arrived  in  Paris  some  time  in  the  late  autumn, 
and  stayed  there  almost  a  year.  What  his  serious 
occupations  and  vital  interests  were  during  this 
inevitably  important  winter,  we  can  only  guess.  In- 
deed, our  one  source  of  information  about  all  of  Hol- 
berg's early  life  is  the  whimsical  first  Autobiograph- 
ical Epistle,  in  which,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  his 
object  was  to  tell  what  was  amusing  rather  than 
what  was  significant.  We  know,  however,  that  he 
took  lodgings  first  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain, 


'HOLBERG'S  LIFE  15 

where  he  lived  in  what  he  calls  "philosophical  se- 
clusion." He  knew  no  one  but  his  landlord,  so  that 
he  thirsted  like  a  Tantalus  for  society.  Under  such 
circumstances  he  must  have  spent  some  time  at  the 
theatres,  about  which  he  says  nothing ;  and  much 
time  in  the  libraries,  about  which  he  tells  us  next  to 
nothing.*  After  several  months  in  Paris,  he  moved 
into  a  part  of  the  city  much  frequented  by  Irish 
Catholics.  His  knowledge  of  England  gave  him  a 
natural  acquaintance  with  them,  which  helped  to 
keep  fresh  the  interest  in  English  literature  that  he 
had  already  gained. 

Early  in  August,  Holberg  left  Paris  for  Rome. 
Travelling  partly  by  boat  and  partly  on  foot,  he 
made  his  way  slowly  to  Marseilles,  where  he  took 
ship  for  Genoa.  On  board  ship  he  contracted  a 
malarial  fever,  which  increased  in  severity  until  it 
threatened  his  life.  In  Genoa  he  lodged  at  a  wretched 
inn,  where  he  stayed  two  or  three  weeks,  extremely 
ill,  and  completely  at  the  mercy  of  a  venal  innkeeper. 
Evidently  he  can  have  seen  but  Htde  of  the  city;  yet 
the  judgement  he  passes  on  its  residents  is  interest- 
ing, if  only  because  it  betrays  the  author's  high 
admiration  for  English  gentlemen . ' '  The  common 
people  of  Genoa,"  he  says,  "are  faithless  and  men- 
dacious to  an  almost  incredible  degree,  but  the  patri- 
cians are  probably  as  free  from  all  vulgar  vices  as 
the  English  nobility." 


16  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

After  a  few  weeks,  Holberg's  fever  subsided 
enough  to  allow  him  to  continue  his  journey  to  Rome. 
He  went  by  sea,  and  had  the  excitement  of  a  threat- 
ened attack  by  Algerian  pirates.  His  fever  continued 
to  harass  him  during  the  six  months  he  lived  in 
Rome,  so  that  his  account  of  his  stay  there  is  meagre 
and  unimportant.  He  was  able,  however,  to  learn 
something  about  Italian  comedy.  He  says  that  at 
Christmas  time  Rome  was  filled  with  companies  of 
comedians  and  pantomimists.  One  of  these  troupes 
of  actors  happened  to  be  quartered  in  his  hotel,  and 
he  not  only  became  acquainted  with  them,  but  also 
saw  them  present  their  one  play,  a  kind  of  variant, 
he  says,  of  Moliere's  Le  Medecin  malgre  liii.  Thus 
we  have  positive  evidence  of  Holberg's  early  ac- 
quaintance with  the  commed'ia  deW  arte  in  its  native 
and  most  popular  form.  He  may  besides  have  seen 
other  plays  given  by  other  companies. 

About  the  end  of  February,  1716,  Holberg  deter- 
mined to  escape  the  perils  of  a  sea -journey  by  return- 
ing to  Paris  overland.  He  walked  from  Rome  to  Flor- 
ence in  fourteen  days,  and,  finding  that  the  constant 
exercise  improved  his  health,  he  continued  on  foot 
over  the  Alps  and  through  Savoy  and  Dauphin e, 
until  he  reached  Lyons.  Thence  he  intended  to  pro- 
ceed by  boat,  but  after  he  had  bought  his  ticket,  a 
group  of  fellow  travellers  induced  him  to  join  them 
in  an  evening  of  revelry.  Holberg  was  so  drunk  when 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  17 

he  left  these  chance  companions  that  the  next  morn- 
ing he  could  not  take  the  boat.  He  had  no  money  to 
buy  a  second  ticket,  and  was  forced  to  walk  to  Paris, 
where  he  spent  a  month  in  a  vain  effort  to  get  rid  of 
his  fever.  The  vexatious  malaria  did  not  leave  him 
until  he  reached  Amsterdam,  on  his  way  back  to 
Copenhagen,  in  the  early  autumn  of  1716. 

His  two  years  abroad  must  have  been  filled  with 
new  and  vivid  impressions  of  books,  plays,  man- 
ners, and  men ;  yet  in  his  capricious  chronicle  he 
gives  but  the  barest  hints  of  the  importance  of  these 
years  in  broadening  his  outlook  upon  life,  and  in 
establishing  his  cosmopolitan  point  of  view. 

Another  fact  regarding  Holberg's journey  maybe 
mentioned  here.  Oliver  Goldsmith's  tramp  through 
Europe,  which  lasted  from  February,  1755,  to  Feb- 
ruary, 1756,  was  probably  suggested  by  his  hearing 
of  Holberg's  similar  undertaking.  Goldsmith  went 
to  Leyden  in  April,  1754,  only  three  months  after  the 
death  of  Holberg,  about  whom  there  was  at  this  time 
much  talk  in  Holland. The  meagre  information  about 
the  Danish  dramatist  which  Goldsmith  gives  in  his 
Inquiry  into  the  Present  State  of  Polite  Learning  in 
Europe  (1759)  is  just  the  sort  that  he  would  have 
obtained  in  chance  conversations."  Polite  learning 
in  Denmark,"  he  asserts,  "rose  and  fell  with  the  late 
famous  Baron  Holberg,"  and  the  whole  paragraph 
on  Denmark  is  devoted  to  him ;  but  more  than  half  of 


18  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

it  concerns  his  prolonged  tramp.  "Without  money, 
recommendations  or  friends,"  says  Goldsmith,  "he 
undertook  to  set  out  on  his  travels  and  made  the  tour 
of  Europe  on  foot.  A  good  voice  and  a  trifling  skill 
in  music  were  the  only  finances  he  had  to  support 
an  undertaking  so  extensive  ;  so  he  travelled  by  day, 
and  at  night  sung  at  the  doors  of  peasants'  houses  to 
get  himself  a  lodging.  In  this  manner,  while  yet  very 
young,  Holberg  passed  through  France,  Germany, 
and  Holland;  and,  coming  over  to  England,  took 
up  his  residence  for  two  years  in  the  University  of 
Oxford.  Here  he  subsisted  by  teaching  French  and 
music,  and  wrote  his  Universal  History ^  his  earliest 
but  worst  performance."  Goldsmith  then  sketches 
vaguely  in  a  few  sentences  the  literary  and  material 
success  of  Holberg' s  later  life. 

This  account  is  particularly  interesting  for  the 
erroneous  statements  about  Holberg  that  it  contains, 
because  through  them  we  can  see  how  completely 
Goldsmith  had  come  to  regard  Holberg's  journey 
as  a  pattern  and  prototype  of  his  own.  Holberg,  for 
example,  did  not  sing  and  play  at  the  doors  of  peas- 
ants' houses  to  get  himself  a  lodging  at  night,  but 
Goldsmith  did.  If  information  similar  to  what 
we  find  in  his  Inquiry  had  come  to  Goldsmith  in 
1754-55,  when  he  was  in  Leyden,  nothing  further 
would  have  been  needed  to  send  the  unpractical  and 
impressionable  young  Irishman  off  on  his  year  of^ 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  19 

vagrancy.  Goldsmith's  journey  seems  to  be  the  sole 
direct  influence  of  Holberg  on  any  English  man  of 
letters,  and  it  is  not  strictly  literary.  Still,  an  inspira- 
tion that  led  to  the  composition  of  the  Traveller^  and 
produced  circumstances  that  helped  to  free  its  au- 
thor from  insularity  in  his  critical  attitude,  deserves 
an  important  place  in  Goldsmith's  biography. 

Superficially  considered,  Holberg's  life  up  to  this 
time  seems  almost  aimless.  He  appears  to  have  be- 
come confirmed  in  habits  of  improvident  travel.  He 
apparently  wandered  whither  his  caprice  directed. 
Yet  none  of  his  movements  during  these  early  years 
was  thoughtlessly  or  carelessly  made.  They  were 
all  intended  to  satisfy  his  insatiable  intellectual  curi- 
osity. He  went  abroad  to  read  in  foreign  libraries  and 
to  study  with  foreign  scholars ;  he  stayed  abroad  to 
observe  life  in  all  its  phases  and  to  reflect  upon 
what  he  saw.  Without  these  experiences  Holberg 
might  possibly  have  become  the  able  scholar  and 
historian  that  he  later  was ;  he  could  scarcely  have 
developed  the  brilliant  talent  for  satire  which  he 
devoted  to  ridiculing  the  provincial  manners  of 
Denmark. 


II 
The  two  years  that  Holberg  had  spent  abroad  had 
brought  no  vacancy  in  the  faculty  of  the  university. 
Though  now  thirty-two,  he  was  still  compelled  to 


20  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

live  on  his  miserable  stipend  and  wait  as  patiently 
as  he  could  for  the  death  of  some  professor.  Yet 
poverty  did  not  destroy  his  zeal  for  scholarship.  He 
continued  his  historical  studies,  and  published  be- 
fore the  end  of  a  year  an  Introduction  to  International 
Law,  a  work  composed  according  to  the  theories  of 
Grotius  and  Puffendorf,  who,  together  with  Tho- 
masius,  were  his  avowed  models. 

In  December,  1717,  Holberg  succeeded  Johan 
Frederik  Wandalin  as  Professor  of  Metaphysics  in 
the  university.  Fate  could  hardly  have  been  more 
playful.  One  who  all  his  life  was  to  be  an  untiring 
opponent  of  the  pedantry  of  mediaeval  logic  was 
forced  to  begin  his  career  as  a  professor  by  teaching 
the  very  subject  which  was  most  dominated  by  for- 
malism. Holberg  saw  the  humour  of  the  situation, 
and  the  ceremonious  laudation  of  metaphysics  which 
tradition  required  him  to  give  at  his  induction  into 
office  was  marked  by  sententious  irony.  His  address 
so  shocked  and  angered  his  colleagues  that  they 
immediately  became  antagonistic  to  him,  and  were 
more  than  ready,  when  they  saw  themselves  ridi- 
culed later  in  satires  like  Peder  Paars,  to  oppose  him 
openly.  For  the  moment,  however,  their  potential 
hostility  interfered  little  with  his  rapid  advance- 
ment. In  1719  he  became  Professor  of  Latin,  and 
in  the  following  year  a  member  of  the  University 
Council. 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  21 

Holberg  now  occupied  himself  with  undertakings 
more  exciting  than  historical  research  and  academic 
lectures.  It  is  no  mere  chance  that  his  work  in  pure 
literature  began  at  this  particular  time.  The  death 
of  Charles  XII  of  Sweden,  in  1718,  had  brought  to 
all  Denmark  a  deep  feeling  of  relief.  The  country 
had  emerged  victorious  from  a  war  that  had  lasted 
ten  years,  and,  led  by  King  Frederik  IV,  was  eager 
to  express  some  of  its  new  self-consciousness.  Hol- 
berg merely  obeyed  a  national  impulse,  though  in 
his  own  peculiar  way,  when  he  began  to  write  the 
vigorous,  almost  insolent,  satires  that  immediately 
involved  him  in  the  first  of  those  disputes  which, 
in  one  form  or  another,  engrossed  him  during  the 
following  eight  years. 

The  immediate  cause  of  Holberg' s  first  satire  was 
a  short  history  of  Denmark,  written  by  Andreas 
H0yer,*  a  young  scholar  from  Slesvig.  This  work, 
although  intended  as  a  text-book  for  Danish  stu- 
dents, was  written  in  German  and  contained  much 
to  irritate  a  loyal  Dane.  But,  besides  patriotic  in- 
dignation, Holberg  felt  personal  resentment,  because 
the  author  in  his  preface  had  spoken  contemptu- 
ously of  all  previous  Danish  historians.  Holberg  cast 
his  defence  in  the  form  of  an  academic  Latin  dis- 
sertation, which  he  pretended  had  been  written  by 
a  well-known  character  in  the  university,  a  sixty- 
year-old  student,  Poul  Rytter,  noted  for  his  incorrigi- 


22  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

ble  drunkenness.  The  satire  attributed  to  this  good- 
for-nothing  is  suitably  coarse;  yet  now  and  then  it 
shows  flashes  of  that  sly,  mordant  humour  for  which 
Holberg  later  became  famous.  He  evidently  found 
the  composition  of  this  pamphlet  congenial  employ- 
ment. No  sooner  was  it  finished  than  he  attacked 
another  work  of  H0yer  with  the  same  controversial 
ardour.  Under  a  new  pseudonym,  Olaus  Petri  Nor- 
vegus,  he  ridiculed  a  Latin  dissertation  in  which 
H0yer  had  tried  to  show  that  marriage  between  par- 
ents and  children  was  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of 
God  or  nature.  Neither  of  these  works  has  much 
literary  value,  yet  both  are  important  to  remember, 
because  they  made  a  dangerous  enemy  of  H0yer, 
and  also  showed  Holberg  the  nature  of  his  distinctive 
literary  power. 

In  the  autumn  of  1719,  Holberg  published,  under 
the  pseudonym  Hans  Mikkelsen,  the  first  book  of 
a  mock-heroic  poem  which  describes  the  adven- 
tures of  a  certain  Peder  Paars  and  his  company, 
who  are  shipwrecked  on  the  little  island  of  Anholt, 
so-called,  says  the  author,  "because  it  holds  on  to 
ships."  In  form  Peder  Paars  is  a  parody  on  the 
classical  epic,  particularly  the  Aeneid;  but  this  con- 
ventional form  is  simply  the  vehicle  for  bitter  satire 
on  Danish  life  as  Holberg  knew  it.  The  unmistak- 
able popular  delight  with  which  the  poem  was  re- 
ceived by  no  means  drowned  the  storm  of  protest 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  23 

that  arose.  The  clergy  saw  themselves  satirized  in 
the  ignorant,  cheating  priest  of  Anholt;  the  gov- 
ernment officers  in  the  grasping,  equally  ignorant 
bailiff;  and  the  professors  at  the  university,  with 
most  reason,  in  the  pedants  who  disputed  angrily 
over  the  exact  position  of  the  wound  which  Venus 
received  in  the  Trojan  war.  Among  the  many  who 
were  enraged.  Professor  Hans  Gram  and  Frederik 
Rostgaard  prepared  to  defend  themselves  with  great- 
est zeal.  Gram,  an  exceptionally  brilliant  historical 
investigator,  took  up  the  cudgels  for  the  dignity 
of  his  profession.  Rostgaard,  one  of  the  most  influ- 
ential of  Holberg's  contemporaries,  fought  for  his 
own  honour.  He  had  traxelled  and  studied  much 
abroad,  had  married  the  half-sister  of  Anna  Sophia 
Reventlow,  later  the  queen  of  Frederik  IV,  and 
had  recently  been  made  Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal. 
He  owned  Anholt,  where  Holberg  had  represented 
people  as  living  in  the  deepest  ignorance  and  de- 
pravity, and  felt,  therefore,  that  the  satire  was  a 
serious  reflection  on  himself.  Gram  and  Rostgaard 
joined  in  writing  a  vigorous  protest  against  the  work 
and  sent  it  to  the  king.  The  satire- deserved  to  be 
condemned,  they  said,  first,  because  it  contained  a 
libellous  description  of  the  excellent  inhabitants  of 
Anholt;  and,  secondly,  because  it  contained  "un- 
seemly and  very  derisive  expressions  directed  against 
the  Royal  University,  the  Rector  Magnificus,  the 


24  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

Bishop,  and  the  professors,  and,  what  is  much  more 
serious,  against  our  Christian  religion  and  God's 
Holy  Word."  For  these  reasons,  they  begged  that 
the  book  be  burned  by  the  common  hangman,  and 
that  the  anonymous  author,  whom  they  probably 
knew  to  be  Holberg,  be  sought  out  and  fittingly 
punished.  The  complaint  was  referred  to  the  king's 
council,  which  had  the  good  sense  to  decide  that 
the  publication  was  not  an  affair  of  enough  public 
importance  to  justify  royal  interference.  The  king 
promptly  approved  the  verdict.  He,  as  well  as  his 
councillors,  had  a  saving  sense  of  humour. 

This  decision, and  Holberg's  immediate  elevation 
to  the  position  of  Professor  of  Eloquence,  evidently 
gave  him  new  boldness,  and  established  his  inde- 
pendence, for  he  immediately  brought  out  the  sec- 
ond and  third  books  of  his  satire.  Before  the  end 
of  the  year,  he  added  a  fourth  book  and  published 
a  complete  edition  of  the  poem.  The  success  of  the 
finished  satire  was  instantaneous  and  remarkable. 
Holberg  states,  with  pardonable  pride,  that  within 
a  year  and  a  half  three  editions  were  exhausted.  No 
previous  book  in  the  Danish  language  had  ever 
attained  like  popularity.  This,  of  course,  increased 
the  bitterness  of  adverse  critics,  who  became  so 
vehement  that,  before  the  end  of  1719,  Holberg 
thought  best  to  defend  himself  in  two  documents. 
The  first  was  a  dialogue  in  verse,  called  ^  Criticism 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  25 

of  ^^ Paars;''''  the  second,  a  prose  criticism,  called 
Just  Justesen\s  Idea  of  Peder  Paars's  History.  The 
latter  is  full  of  sly,  good-natured  satire,  quite  unlike 
the  bludgeoning  humour  oS.  Peder  Paars .  "Why  !  " 
the  writer  says  in  effect,  "the  author  of  this  poem, 
for  the  very  purpose  of  freeing  his  work  from  any 
suspicion  of  personal  satire,  chose  for  the  scene  of 
his  action  the  obscure  and  remote  island  of  Anholt ; 
and  for  the  time  the  beginning  of  the  previous  cen- 
tury. Among  various  disagreeable  inhabitants  of  that 
island,  he  described  an  ignorant  and  covetous  priest. 
Now  I  ask  every  sensible  man  if  an  author  who 
describes  a  wicked  and  ignorant  priest  of  Anholt 
of  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  can  with  fairness 
be  accused  of  impiety.  Are  not  those  who  accuse  the 
author  really  more  to  be  blamed  than  he  ?  " 

When  the  controversy  over  Peder  Paars  had 
somewhat  subsided,  Holberg  published  five  more 
satires  on  miscellaneous  subjects.  The  first  was 
printed  separately  and  anonymously,  but  in  1722 
all  five  appeared  together  under  the  following  title  : 
Hans M'lkkelseri' s  Four  Satires^  with  Two  Prefaces; 
together  with  Zille  Hansen' s  Defence  of  the  Female 
Sex.  The  first  satire,  an  imitation  of  Boileau's 
eighth,  reveals  the  author  musing  whether  he  ought 
to  laugh  or  cry  over  the  world  and  man's  life  in  it. 
He  answers,  of  course,  that  laughter  is  more  philo- 
sophical and  more  amusing  than  weeping.  The  sec- 


26  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

ond  dwells  on  the  contradictions  which  exist  in  every 
man's  character.  It  emphasizes  the  fact  that  the 
singer  Tigellius,  whom  Horace  ridicules  for  his  fickle- 
ness of  mind,  is  just  like  everyone  else  in  the  world. 
The  third  satire  is  a  defence  of  Peder  Paars,  prac- 
tically identical  with  that  in  the  criticism  published 
two  years  before.  The  fourth,  in  which  "the  poet 
advises  his  old  friend  Jens  Larsen  not  to  marry," 
is  an  imitation  and  special  application  of  the  sixth 
satire  of  Juvenal.  The  fifth,  in  defence  of  women, 
purports  to  be  written  by  a  certain  Zille  Hansen,* 
and  contains  a  serious  assertion  that  women  are 
excluded  from  educational  advantages  and  from 
the  rights  of  citizenship,  including  the  right  to  vote, 
not  by  any  law  of  nature,  but  by  the  arbitrary  pro- 
scription of  man, 

Holberg  declares  that  these  successful  satires 
made  him  very  unpopular  in  certain  circles.  His 
fellow  professors,  he  says,  became  hostile  to  him, 
and  many  individual  citizens  regarded  with  dread 
and  aversion  one  who  could  attack  with  such  bit- 
terness the  follies  and  vices  of  mankind.  Wearied, 
apparently,  of  a  sort  of  writing  which  brought  him 
only  hatred,  he  returned  with  relief  to  his  historical 
studies.  At  first  he  spent  much  time  on  ^  Description 
of  Denmark  and  Norway^  a  large  volume,  which  was 
not  to  be  published  until  1729.  He  also  prepared 
a  second  edition  of  his  European  History  of  171 1,  in 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  27 

which  he  brought  the  narrative  down  to  1720.  Mean- 
while, conditions  in  Copenhagen  were  making  for 
the  establishment  of  that  Danish  theatre  to  which 
Holberg  was  to  be  the  greatest  contributor. 

The  establishment  of  Danish  drama  in  Copen- 
hagen was  the  result  of  a  chance  cooperation  of 
three  very  different  men,  Rene  Montaigu,  Etienne 
Capion,  and  Ludvig  Holberg.  Montaigu  had  been 
summoned  from  France  as  early  as  1704,  to  serv^e 
as  manager  for  a  company  of  actors  which  was  pre- 
senting French  plays  at  the  court  of  Frederik  IV. 
This  company  continued  to  play  at  the  Danish  court 
until  the  plague  broke  out  in  Copenhagen  in  1710. 
Its  repertory  consisted  principally  of  comedies  by 
Moliere,  Dancourt,  and  Legrand;  of  farces  from 
Gherardi's  Theatre  Italien;  and  of  certain  trage- 
dies of  Corneille  and  Racine.  The  plague  put  an 
end  to  all  dramatic  performances,  but  in  1715  the 
company  began  a  second  engagement,  which  did 
not  terminate  until  September,  1721,  when  the  king 
made  a  contract  with  Reinhard  Kayser,  the  director 
and  composer  of  a  German  opera  company  in  Ham- 
burg, according  to  which  he  was  to  pay  him  six 
thousand  rigsdaler  a  year  for  the  support  of  his 
company.  He  could  hardly  afford  more  than  this 
sum  for  royal  amusements,  so  that  he  dismissed  all 
his  French  actors  except  Montaigu,  whose  pension 
he  continued.  Etienne  Capion,  who  was  to  be  Mon- 


28  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

taigu's  fellow  promoter,  had  come  to  Copenhagen 
many  years  before  as  a  member  of  a  French  troupe. 
The  company  had  gone  to  pieces,  and  since  1703 
Capion  had  been  a  wine  merchant  in  the  Danish 
capital.  The  failure  of  Montaigu's  venture  gave 
Capion  what  seemed  a  rare  opportunity  to  establish 
a  successful  theatrical  company  of  his  own.  He  ob- 
tained a  royal  patent  giving  him  the  sole  right  to 
produce  comedy  in  Copenhagen,  and  on  January 
20, 1722,  opened  a  theatre  for  the  production  of 
French  comedies.  "In  the  meantime,"  writes  Hol- 
berg,"it  had  occurred  to  certain  men,  in  emula- 
tion of  other  nations,  to  encourage  the  establishment 
of  native  drama  in  Denmark."  Of  these  by  far  the 
most  influential  was  Frederik  Rostgaard.  He  had, 
to  be  sure,  inveighed  rather  stupidly  against  Peder 
Paars^  but  he  was  a  genuinely  cultivated  man,  eager 
to  enlarge  the  intellectual  life  of  his  country.  Rene 
Montaigu  seemed  to  him  the  one  person  likely  to 
organize  with  success  a  company  of  Danish  actors ; 
and,  through  Rostgaard's  influence,  Montaigu,  by 
royal  patent,  was  given  permission  to  bring  out  plays 
in  Danish,  provided  they  were  produced  under  the 
patent  already  granted  to  Capion.  In  compliance 
with  this  requirement,  Capion  and  Montaigu  joined 
forces. 

The  really  important  task  which  confronted  the 
promoters  of  the  enterprise  was  to  find  an  author 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  29 

who  could  furnish  the  company  with  original  Danish 
plays.  No  theatre  can  thrive  on  translations  exclu- 
sively, and  Denmark  at  this  time  had  absolutely 
no  drama  in  the  vernacular  which  would  have  inter- 
ested an  eighteenth -century  audience.  Danish  mira- 
cle-plays and  mysteries  and  Latin  school  dramas  of 
course  existed  ;  but  they  were  all  obviously  unavail- 
able. Rostgaard,  although  he  had  been  a  bitter  op- 
ponent of  Peder  Paars,  was  broad-minded  and  keen 
enough  to  see  that  the  author  of  that  work  had  not 
only  created  the  spirit,  but  also  had  discovered  the 
subject-matter  of  native  comedy.  He  therefore  sug- 
gested that  Holberg  should  write  for  the  newly  or- 
ganized company.  Holberg  responded  with  apparent 
enthusiasm.  Indeed,  he  wrote  comedies  so  rapidly 
and  with  so  much  zest  during  the  next  few  years 
that  we  are  tempted  to  believe  that  he  may  have 
composed  at  least  a  rough  draft  of  some  of  them 
before.  In  one  of  the  prefaces  to  his  satires,  pub- 
lished in  1722,  he  had  compared  his  Peder  Paars^  in 
the  nature  of  its  ridicule,  to  the  comedies  of  Moliere 
and  Ben  Jonson.  In  the  second  preface  to  the  same 
collection  he  declared  that  he  saw  in  the  faults  of 
mankind  much  material  from  which  fine  comedies 
might  be  made.  As  soon  as  Holberg  observed  the 
dramatic  possibilities  in  the  figures  and  situations  of 
his  satires,  he  found  it  easy  to  create  actual  drama 
out  of  these  elements.  One  fact,  at  least,  is  clear: 


30  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

much  of  the  material  of  his  earlier  comedies  has  a 
potential  existence  in  PederPaars.  Important  figures 
in  the  plays  (like  Per  Deacon,  Gert  Westphaler, 
and  Niels  Corporal)  appear  there  in  person,  with 
their  most  distinctive  traits  of  character  and  amusing 
mannerisms.  Other  famous  dramatic  figures  may 
be  seen  in  the  satire  as  mere  sketches.  Martha,  the 
intriguing  servant  of  the  bailiiFs  daughter,  is  a  per- 
fect prototype  of  Pernille;  and  the  village  satirist 
possesses  a  nature  and  a  problem  which  belong, 
only  in  a  greater  degree,  to  Philemon  in  The  For- 
tunate Shipwreck.  The  situations  and  comic  devices, 
no  less  than  the  characters  of  Peder  Paars^  recur  in 
the  comedies.  For  example,  the  famous  "Collegium 
Politicum ' '  of  The  Political  Tinker  in  fully  devel- 
oped form,  even  to  the  interruption  of  the  shrew- 
ish wife,  is  a  part  of  the  earlier  satire.  One  may  say 
without  exaggeration  that  hundreds  of  such  simi- 
larities exist  between  Peder  Paars  and  the  plays. 
It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  Holberg,  who  had 
already  realized  the  dramatic  value  of  these  charac- 
ters and  situations,  eagerly  accepted  the  proposal  to 
write  for  the  new  company. 

He  must  have  found  his  work  immensely  stimu- 
lating, for,  even  though  the  burden  of  invention  was 
lessened  by  his  revamping  of  old  material,  he  wrote 
with  almost  incredible  swiftness.  When  Montaigu's 
company  opened  its  theatre  on  August  23,  1722, 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  31 

with  a  Danish  translation  of  Moliere's  UAvare^ 
Holberg  presented  it  with  five  of  his  best  works  :  The 
Political  Tinker^  The  Fickle-minded  Woman ^  Gert 
Westphalei\  Jean  de  France^  and  JeppeoftheHill. 
During  the  year  1722  the  company  gave  all  of  these 
plays,  besides  Z/'^L'arc',  translations  of  Moliere's  Z)o// 
Juan  and  Le  Malade  Imaginaire,  and  Boursault's 
Esope  a  la  Ville.  During  the  next  two  years,  Hol- 
berg continued  to  work  indefatigably  for  the  com- 
pany .  W ith  the  exception  of  Joachim  Richard  Pauli's 
The  Blind  Man  with  Sight^  his  were  the  only  suc- 
cessful Danish  comedies  which  the  company  could 
procure.  In  1723  The  Eleventh  of  J une  2ivA  The 
Lying-in  Chamber  wore  presented  for  the  first  time; 
and  in  1724  The  Arabian  Powder^  Christmas  Eve^ 
Masquerades^  Jacob  von  Tybo^  Ulysses  von  Ithacia^ 
The  Journey  to  the  Spnng^  Melampe^  and  Without 
Head  or  Tail. 

The  first  Danish  company  consisted  of  eleven 
members,  three  of  whom  were  women.  All  the  men, 
except  Frederik  Pilloi,  the  first  Jean  de  France,  were 
students.  The  most  famous  were  Uls0e,  the  first 
Hermann  von  Bremen,  and  Henrik  Wegner,  after 
whom  Holberg  named  his  famous  roguish  servant. 
The  employment  of  students  was  a  constant  source 
of  friction  between  Holberg  and  the  other  members 
of  the  University  Council,  a  court  which  undertook 
to  try  those  students  who  became  actors.  The  case 


32  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

of  Jens  H0berg,  which  occupied  the  Council  from 
March  to  June,  1723,  was  typical.  Although  he  held 
a  scholarship  in  Walkendorf  College,  he  had  become 
a  member  of  the  new  company.  After  months  of  de- 
liberation, the  Council  warned  him  that  he  must  give 
up  the  stage  if  he  expected  to  keep  his  scholarship, 
and  only  by  an  appeal  to  the  king  was  he  able  to 
have  the  decision  reversed.  This  discussion  in  the 
Council  widened  the  breach  between  Holberg  and 
his  colleagues.  They  looked  upon  him  as  more  than 
any  other  responsible  for  perversion  of  the  youth  of 
the  university  and  for  destruction  of  collegiate  dis- 
cipline. Plots  were  probably  already  being  formed  to 
deprive  him  of  his  academic  dignities,  but  not  for 
two  years  did  they  seriously  threaten  his  position. 
Meanwhile,  he  began  to  publish  his  comedies. 
In  the  summer  of  1723  appeared  the  first  volume 
of  Hans  Mikkelsen's  Danish  Theatre.  To  this  vol- 
ume ^vas  prefaced  Just  Justeseii' s  Rejlections  upon 
Comedy^  an  essay  in  which  Holberg  defends  the  part 
he  had  taken  in  building  up  the  new  Danish  theatre. 
From  the  nature  of  the  defence,  we  can  easily  see 
what  charges  were  being  persistently  made  against 
him.  He  answers  with  a  vigorous  affirmative  the 
following  questions  :  "  Is  it  consistent  with  the  posi- 
tion and  character  of  scholars  to  write  comedies  ? ' ' 
and  "Is  it  becoming  and  proper  for  the  children 
of  respectable  people  to  take  part  in  theatrical  per- 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  33 

formances ?  "  In  March,  1724,  the  second  volume 
of  Holberg's  Theatre  appeared,  and  a  year  later  the 
third  volume.  These  three  volumes  include  all  the 
plays  he  had  written  up  to  that  time,  except  The 
Busy  Mail,  Erasmus Montanus^  Witchcraft^  and  Don 
Ranudo. 

Besides  the  enmities  which  Holberg  had  aroused 
at  the  university  during  these  years,  he  quite  gratui- 
tously gained  the  hatred  of  Christian  Lassen  Ty- 
chonius,  a  priest  in  Viborg,  who,  in  spite  of  a  great 
reputation  for  learning,  was  really  a  complete  pedant. 
We  should  expect  him,  therefore,  to  have  been  fair 
game  for  Holberg's  ridicule,  but  for  the  boldness  and 
directness  of  it  we  are  by  no  means  prepared.  The 
stupid  pedant  who  now  appears  asStygotius  in  Jacob 
von  7y(^o,  Holberg  originally  called  Tychonius.  The 
priest  was  indignant  at  this  public  insult,  and  im- 
mediately protested  to  the  king.  Holberg  ridiculed 
his  protest  in  a  poem.  The  Jutland  Feud.  Tycho- 
nius's  anger  was  not  of  the  sort,  however,  to  be  ap- 
peased by  ridicule.  In  M0inchen,  Deikmann,  and 
Hans  Gram,  the  priest  had  friends  at  court,  through 
whom  he  evidently  tried  to  take  vengeance.  At  any 
rate,  an  investigation  of  university  affairs  which 
they  undertook  soon  after  seemed  partially  directed 
against  Holberg. 

These  three,  together  with  Andreas  H0yer,  in 
1725,  devised  a  plan  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of 


34  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

increasing  the  efficiency  of  the  university.  Bishop 
Deikmann,  his  son-in-law  Chancellor  Rasch,  Lin- 
trup  the  king's  chaplain,  and  Andreas  H0yer  were 
to  be  the  members  of  a  commission,*  which  was 
to  be  given  very  comprehensive  powers.  It  was  to 
ascertain,  amongst  other  things,  whether  professors 
did  their  express  duty  by  holding  both  public  and 
private  disputations,  and  whether  professors  were 
qualified  to  teach  their  subjects.  If  the  commission 
discovered  that  any  one  of  the  young  professors  had 
not  properly  established  himself  by  a  disputation,  or 
by  some  other  proof  of  his  academic  fitness,  it  was 
to  compel  such  a  delinquent  to  comply  with  that 
excellent  rule  at  once.  Finally,  if  it  discovered  among 
the  professors  any  man  practically  incapacitated 
through  sickness,  multiplicity  of  offices,  or  native 
inefficency,  it  was  to  recommend  his  removal.  The 
commission  intended  to  present  this  plan  to  Queen 
Anna  Sophia  for  her  approval,  along  with  a  letter 
of  recommendation  written  by  M0inchen  on  Febru- 
ary 28, 1725. 

If  Holberg  had  known  of  this  scheme,  he  might 
reasonably  have  felt  that  it  was  a  threat  to  his  aca- 
demic position.  The  members  of  the  commission, 
dominated  as  they  were  by  H0yer,  he  might  have 
expected  to  be  hostile  to  him.  Moreover,  he  might 
have  imagined  that  some  of  the  lines  of  enquiry  were 
directed  particularly  against  him.  The  prejudiced 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  35 

jury  might  have  pronounced  him  guilty  on  three  of 
the  four  counts.  Although  Erasmus  Montanus  was 
not  yet  published,  in  Peder  Paars  he  had  pointedly 
ridiculed  the  folly  of  academic  disputations.  As  Pro- 
fessor of  Rhetoric,  he  had  been  severely  criticised 
by  certain  of  his  own  students  for  his  failure  to  teach 
Cicero  in  the  conventional  way.  A  young  pedant 
named  Lutken  had  complained  to  Lintrup,  one  of 
the  members  of  the  investigating  commission,  of 
Holberg's  methods  of  teaching.  "He  would  do 
us  the  greatest  service,"  he  writes,  "if  he  would 
only  keep  still  and  not  give  us  his  wretched  talk." 
Finally,  Holberg  might  have  been  adjudged  inca- 
pacitated for  effective  teaching,  both  because  of  his 
delicate  health  and  because  of  his  pernicious  activ- 
ity in  writing  comedies. 

In  June,  1725,  Holberg  left  Copenhagen  to  take 
the  baths  at  Aix,  tired  out,  he  says,  by  his  dramatic 
labours.  He  could  hardly  have  had  any  notion  at 
this  time  of  the  schemes  of  the  hostile  clique,  so  that 
the  journey  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  flight  from 
dreaded  persecution.  Nor  was  it  a  bona  Jide  trip  in 
search  of  health  and  rest.  Instead  of  going  to  Aix, 
he  made  directly  for  Paris,  where  he  spent  the 
greater  part  of  the  next  two  months.  He  seems  to 
have  gone  there  in  the  hope  of  getting  some  of  his 
plays  presented  on  the  French  stage.  The  interna- 
tional reputation  which  such  performances  would 


36  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

give  him  was  a  natural  object  of  desire.  He  himself 
translated  two  of  his  comedies  into  French,  and  sent 
one  of  them,  The  Political  Tinker^  to  Riccoboni,  dit 
Lelio,  the  director  of  the  Italian  Theatre.  Riccoboni 
pronounced  the  play  tutta  meravigliosa^  but  gave  as  a 
reason  for  not  presenting  it  the  curious  excuse  that 
he  feared  it  would  be  regarded  as  a  satire  on  Fleury. 
Holberg  also  sought  to  obtain  a  standing  as  a  French 
man  of  letters  by  cultivating  critics  like  Montfaucon, 
Hardouin,  and  Castel;  and  by  frequenting  places 
like  the  Cafe  des  Beaux  Esprits,  where  Lamotte 
presided.  While  he  was  attempting  to  realize  these 
literary  ambitions,  he  heard  that  enemies  at  home 
were  plotting  against  him.*  These  individuals  may 
have  been  merely  certain  of  his  colleagues  at  the 
university,  who  naturally  objected  to  his  long  ab- 
sence from  his  work,  or  they  may  have  been  mem- 
bers of  the  investigating  commission,  whose  scheme 
first  became  known  toHolberg's  friends  in  Copen- 
hagen in  the  spring  of  1726.  Whoever  they  were, 
he  thought  it  necessary  to  hurry  back  to  meet  their 
attacks.  He  arrived  in  Copenhagen  some  time  in 
April,  1726,  and  then,  or  soon  after,  it  seems  clear, 
he  began  the  composition  of  his  extremely  impor- 
tant first  Autobiographical  Epistle. 

Although  this  letter  has  given  rise  to  endless  con- 
troversy, the  following  facts  about  it  are  undisputed. 
It  is  dated  Copenhagen,  December  31, 1727,  and  * 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  37 

was  surely  published  before  April  3,  1728.*  It  pur- 
ports to  be  addressed  to  a  vir  perillustris^  who,  as  a 
short  Latin  statement  prefaced  to  the  book  asserts, 
published  it  without  the  author's  knowledge  and 
consent. 

These  few  facts  have  been  variously  interpreted 
until  the  fancy  of  ingenious  critics  has  obscured  the 
simple  nature  of  the  autobiography.']*  It  is  exactly 
what  it  seems  to  be,  a  whimsical  narrative  of  Hol- 
berg's  early  life.  It  is  not  an  apology  for  his  dra- 
matic activities,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is 
nothing  apologetic  about  the  letter.  He  slighted  the 
formative  years  of  his  travel  and  study  abroad,  not 
because  he  wished  to  emphasize  his  services  to  the 
university,  but  because  those  years  did  not  seem  of 
profound  significance.  Two  hundred  years  after  the 
events  of  his  remarkable  youth,  we  are  naturally 
eager  to  know  much  more  about  them  than  he  tells 
us;  but  Holberg  wrote  for  his  contemporaries,  not 
for  us.  He  had,  moreover,  a  wholesome  sense  of 
humour,  which  prevented  him  from  regarding  his 
early  life  with  the  seriousness  of  a  romantic  poet. 
At  the  age  of  forty-two  he  naturally  looked  back 
upon  his  youth  with  amusement,  and  wrote  of  it 
whimsically.  He  slighted  it,  notwith  crafty  intention, 
but  from  a  natural  disinclination  to  bore  his  readers 
with  a  minute  account  of  unimportant  matters. 

The  consensus  of  modern  opinion  on  this  subject 


38  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

seems  to  be,  furthermore,  that  Holberg's  pretence 
that  the  letter  was  originally  a  private  communi- 
cation to  a  distinguished  man  was  simply  a  literary 
device.  The  author,  from  the  beginning,  intended 
the  epistle  for  the  public,  and  merely  pretended  that 
it  was  addressed  to  a  nobleman  the  better  to  arouse 
general  interest.  Whether  Holberg's  first  Latin 
Epistle  is  his  apology  for  his  life  or  merely  an  en- 
tertaining narrative,  whether  it  is  addressed  to  some 
great  noble  or  to  the  general  public,  plainly  the  au- 
thor records  in  it  amusing  rather  than  significant 
facts.  And  although  it  is  almost  the  only  source  of 
our  information  about  him,  it  is  by  no  means  a  com- 
plete statement.  It  must  continually  be  corrected 
and  extended  by  documentary  evidence  or  by  well- 
founded  inference. 

After  Holberg's  return  from  abroad,  in  1726,  the 
Danish  company  continued  to  present  his  old  plays, 
as  well  as  to  produce  each  year  a  number  of  new 
ones  from  those  he  had  given  to  Montaigu  in  1723. 
Of  these  the  most  important  to  a  historian  of  the 
theatre  in  Copenhagen  is  The  Funeral  of  Danish 
Comedy.  This  drama  was  written  to  be  presented  on 
February  25,  1727,  the  day  on  which  Montaigu 's 
company  expected  to  give  its  final  public  perform- 
ance. The  organization  seemed  hopelessly  bank- 
rupt. During  the  first  year  of  its  existence,  it  had 
gained  nothing  but  the  fitful  and  languid  interest 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  39 

of  the  public.  The  theatre  held  only  about  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  spectators,  so  that  the  troupe  in  the 
days  of  its  greatest  popularity  never  counted  on  box 
receipts  of  more  than  two  hundred  rigsdaler  (about 
$320).  After  the  first  year  the  receipts  of  the  even- 
ing often  amounted  to  a  paltry  eight  rigsdaler  (about 
$13),  and  not  infrequently  the  actors  were  com- 
pelled to  tell  the  score  of  faithful  spectators  who  had 
gathered  that  they  could  not  afford  to  present  the 
play  for  so  small  an  audience.  This  lack  of  public 
interest,  far  from  crushing  Montaigu,  merely  made 
him  redouble  his  efforts  to  obtain  what  he  had  always 
ardently  desired,  a  royal  subsidy.  The  time  was  fa- 
vourable for  urging  the  matter,  because  the  royal 
palace  in  Copenhagen,  which  since  1724  had  been 
undergoing  extensive  repairs,  had  recently  been 
completely  restored.  In  this  renovated  palace  was  a 
private  theatre,  in  which  the  king  would  naturally 
wish  to  have  theatrical  performances.  Montaigu 
was  so  far  successful  in  his  appeal  to  the  king  that, 
in  February,  1728,  he  obtained  for  his  company  an 
annual  royal  subvention  of  fifteen  hundred  rigsdaler 
(about  $2400). 

In  the  spring  of  1 728,  therefore,  the  company,  no 
longer  dependent  on  the  support  of  a  fickle  public, 
began  to  play  again  under  the  proud  title  of  Royal 
Actors.  The  novelties  which  it  offered  during  this 
spring  were  largely  plays  of  the  commedia  deW  arte 


40  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

translated  from  Gherardi's  Theatre  Italien.  The 
actors,  of  course,  urged  Holberg  to  write  new  com- 
edies for  them;  but  he  refused,  because,  as  he  says 
in  his  autobiography,  he  was  thoroughly  tired  of 
the  controversies  in  which  his  plays  continually  in- 
volved him.  Yet  this  desire  for  peace  did  not  pre- 
vent either  his  revising  some  of  his  old  comedies  for 
new  presentation,  or  his  giving  the  company  a  few 
others,  which  he  had  composed  before  1723.  Some 
of  these  plays  the  company  certainly  intended  to 
present  in  the  autumn  of  1728,  when  its  first  com- 
plete season  under  royal  protection  was  to  begin. 
All  the  plans  of  Montaigu  were  upset,  however, 
by  the  terrible  fire  that  swept  Copenhagen  from 
October  20  to  October  23.  The  theatre  building 
itself  was  not  destroyed,  but  the  city  was  so  im- 
poverished that  all  forms  of  public  amusement 
were  for  the  moment  impossible.  Furthermore,  the 
pietists,  to  whose  doctrines  the  Crown  Prince  was 
a  devout  adherent,  saw  in  the  fire  a  divine  punish- 
ment for  the  wickedness  of  Copenhagen ;  and  the 
most  obvious  and  impudent  form  of  this  wicked- 
ness they  believed  to  be  the  drama.  The  king  was 
enough  influenced  by  the  fanatics  to  discontinue  his 
royal  grant  to  the  Danish  comedians,  and  before 
conditions  in  the  city  were  sufficiently  improved  to 
warrant  his  resumption  of  the  subsidy,  he  died,  on 
October  12, 1730.  His  successor,  Christian  VI,  was 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  41 

a  confirmed  pietist,  so  that  with  his  accession  all 
hope  of  resuming  dramatic  performances  in  Copen- 
hagen disappeared.  The  members  of  Montaigu's 
company  scattered,  and  the  building  was  sold  at 
auction  in  1733.  During  the  entire  reign  of  Chris- 
tian VI  there  were  no  licensed  dramatic  perform- 
ances in  the  Danish  capital. 

Although  it  is  customary  to  speak  of  Holberg's 
dramatic  development  as  almost  tragically  inter- 
rupted by  these  events,  the  plain  facts  seem  to  show 
that  before  this  time  he  was  written  out.  Almost  all 
of  his  comedies  were  the  result  of  one  sudden  im- 
pulse to  expression.  Since  1723  he  had  composed 
scarcely  more  than  three  ;  yet  Montaigu's  company 
had  been  playing  almost  continually  five  years  after 
that  time.  If  Holberg  had  felt  the  slightest  desire 
to  write  comedies  during  these  five  years,  he  would 
more  than  once  have  foimd  conditions  in  the  theatre 
favourable  for  the  production  of  his  new  plays.  In 
1728,  for  example,  Montaigu's  company,  assured 
of  the  royal  pension,  bade  fair  to  become  a  perma- 
nent national  institution.  Yet  under  these  very  stim- 
ulating circumstances,  Holberg  did  nothing  but  re- 
vise some  of  his  old  work.  There  is  no  reason  for  sup- 
posing that  only  the  ban  on  theatrical  performances 
kept  him  from  creating  new  and  brilliant  comedy. 

Holberg  never  subsequently  devoted  his  best  in- 
tellectual effort  to  the  composition  of  drama.  The 


42  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

plays  which  immortalize  him  were  written  with 
great  rapidity  within  the  limits  of  one  decade,  most 
of  them,  indeed,  between  1721  and  1726.  Obviously, 
he  could  not  have  composed  with  so  great  ease  un- 
less his  youth  of  apparently  aimless  vagrancy  had 
established  an  unusually  keen  and  original  critical 
attitude.  When  he  returned  to  Copenhagen  to  stay, 
after  spending  the  greater  part  of  ten  years  in  the 
intellectual  centres  of  Europe,  provincial  Danish  life 
seemed  immediately  ridiculous.  To  write  comedy 
he  had  but  to  compose  what  he  saw.  But  when  the 
life  about  him  became  utterly  familiar  again,  its 
incongruities  disappeared;  and,  as  his  professional 
duties  grew  absorbing,  his  interests  became  less 
those  of  a  satirist  and  more  those  of  a  productive 
scholar. 

Ill 

In  the  preface  to  a  slight  satire  published  as  early 
as  1726,  Holberg  makes  the  significant  statement 
that  this  poem  is  without  doubt  his  last  work  of 
pure  Hterature.  "For,"  he  says  facetiously, "hu- 
morous writers  are  like  cats ;  both  turn  the  exag- 
gerated playfulness  which  nature  gives  them  in  their 
youth  into  an  equally  exaggerated  gravity  in  later 
life."  Like  a  cat,  he  has  grown  serious-minded  and 
a  little  indolent,  so  that  he  no  longer  feels  the  im- 
pulse to  comic  writing.  His  next  work,  therefore,  is 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  43 

a  serious  study  of  a  contemporary  social  problem. 
It  is  a  defence  of  the  Danish  East  India  Company 
against  charges  of  mismanagement  brought  by  Ger- 
man critics.  For  this  work  he  received  the  public 
thanks  of  the  Copenhagen  stock  exchange.  In  the 
same  year,  1728,  he  published  new  editions  both  of 
his  Introduction  to  European  History  and  of  his  Prin- 
ciples of  International  Laxv^  after  which  he  began 
to  collect  materials  for  his  first  important  historical 
volume,  A  Description  of  Denmark  and  Norway.  The 
great  fire  of  October,  1728,  destroyed  his  house, 
and  with  it  all  his  valuable  historical  papers,  but 
the  moment  he  could  find  a  new  residence  he  set 
to  work  again  with  so  much  energy  that  in  the 
following  year  he  was  able  to  publish  the  book  as 
originally  planned.  The  range  and  quality  of  these 
works,  produced  during  the  years  when  he  might 
well  have  been  writing  comedy,  prove  that  Holberg 
had  not,  as  he  insinuates,  grown  slothful,  but  that 
he  had  merely  grown  tired  of  being  funny. 

Holberg  was  chosen  to  pronounce  at  the  univer- 
sity the  funeral  oration  over  King  Frederik  IV.  This 
duty  was  probably  foisted  upon  him  because  the 
faculties  considered  it  a  particularly  difficult  one. 
Christian  VI  disapproved  so  strongly  of  much  of  his 
father's  life  that  few  men  thought  any  one  could 
praise  the  dead  king  openly  without  seeming  to  crit- 
icise his  living  successor.  Holberg  performed  his 


44  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

delicate  task,  however,  with  dignity,  candour,  and 
some  eloquence.  The  passage  in  which  he  praises 
the  king's  attitude  toward  his  own  literary  activity 
is  of  particular  interest  to  us.  "  We  talked,"  he 
says, "as  in  a  free  state.  We  joked,  we  satirized, 
we  disputed  with  each  other  in  jest,  fearlessly,  be- 
cause the  king  never  was  offended  at  any  freedom 
of  speech  or  at  thoughtless  words."  The  satirist  is 
here  gratefully  acknow ledging  in  public  the  favours 
which  the  dead  king  had  more  than  once  shown  him 
and  his  work. 

During  1 730,  the  year  of  Christian  VI's  accession 
to  the  throne,  Holberg  was  made  Professor  of  His- 
tory in  the  university.  In  the  ridicule  and  contempt 
which  have  always  been  heaped  upon  the  pietistic 
king  for  his  inopportune  antagonism  to  the  young 
Danish  drama,  it  is  often  forgotten  that  he  was  an 
eager  and  enthusiastic  patron  of  scholarship.  The 
new  professor  of  history  quite  naturally,  therefore, 
during  Christian  VI's  reign,  devoted  himself  almost 
exclusively  to  historical  research .  In  1 73 1 ,  to  be  sure, 
as  a  sort  of  farewell  to  the  stage,  he  published  a 
complete  edition  of  his  twenty -five  comedies,  in- 
cluding all  that  he  had  written  up  to  that  time, 
with  the  exception  of  Don  Ranudo.  During  the  suc- 
ceeding years,  however,  he  wrote  mainly  histori- 
cal works.  From  1732  to  1735  he  occupied  himself 
with  his  History  of  Denmark  from  the  earliest  times 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  45 

through  the  reign  of  Frederik  III,  a  work  which 
Holberg  in  later  life  was  disposed  to  consider  as 
his  best.  On  it  his  present  reputation  as  an  histo- 
rian undoubtedly  rests.  In  1733  appeared  (in  Latin) 
a  Synopsis  of  the  History  of  the  JForld  and  a  Text- 
book of  Geography ;  in  1734,  a  revised  edition  of  his 
Introduction  to  Intej'national  Law.ln  1735,  a  second 
Autobiographical  Epistle  and  five  books  of  Latin 
epigrams  were  published  in  a  book  called  Opus- 
culaLatina.  This  second  epistle,  which  narrates  the 
events  of  Holberg 's  life  from  1726  to  1735,  is  an 
entirely  different  sort  of  document  from  the  first.  It 
contains  neither  apologies  for  his  life,  nor  amusing 
but  irrelevant  digressions.  It  is  a  brief,  straightfor- 
ward narrative  of  facts,  written  by  a  man  palpably 
satisfied  with  his  secure  position  in  the  world. 

In  1737,  Holberg  became  treasurer  of  the  univer- 
sity,—  a  curious  metamorphosis,  hehimself  admits, 
that  of  a  philosopher  into  a  financier.  The  office  was 
well  paid,  and  Holberg  justified  his  acceptance  of 
such  a  position  by  saying  that  after  forty  years  of 
scholarly  labour,  he  thought  he  had  a  right  to  rest 
in  comfort.  His  election  to  this  position  proves  that 
the  industrious  historian  and  the  clever  author  of 
comedy  was  generally  recognized  to  have  business 
ability  and  hard  common  sense.  Holberg  was  neither 
a  dreamer  nor  a  retired  scholar.  As  a  man  of  affairs, 
no  less  than  as  a  satirist,  he  levelled  his  eyes  contin- 


46  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

ually  at  his  fellows  ;  he  applied  his  criticism  frankly 
to  their  practical  occupations.  For  many  months 
after  his  new  appointment  he  devoted  himself  exclu- 
sively to  his  account-books.  Yet,  as  he  himself  says, 
a  taste  for  writing  is  as  difficult  to  overcome  as  a 
taste  for  whiskey,  so  that  in  the  end  his  routine  work 
proved  a  positive  stimulus.  He  wrote  with  the  great- 
est eagerness  and  with  the  best  results  in  the  months 
when  he  was  most  occupied  with  auditing  and  pay- 
ing bills.  His  production  during  the  next  few  years 
continued  as  great  as  ever  before.  ^  Description  of 
Bergen.,  the  Famous  Monvegian  Commercial  City.,  a 
short  but  important  historical  account  of  his  native 
place;  two  large  volumes,  a  General  History  of  the 
Church.,  and  a  Comparative  History  of  the  Achieve- 
ments of  Various  Great  Heroes  and  Famous  Men 
(which,  like  Plutarch's  Lives.,  is  a  collection  of  com- 
parative biographies  arranged  in  pairs)  were  pub- 
lished in  consecutive  years.  For  the  last  work  Hol- 
berg  chose  chiefly  Asiatic  and  Indian  heroes,  whose 
romantic  names  in  themselves  provoked  an  eager 
curiosity  in  the  reading  public.  He  compared,  for 
example,  Oran  Zeb  with  Saladin,  Montezuma  with 
Atapaliba,  Cingeskan  with  Tamburlaine.  Many  of 
the  personages  might  easily  have  stepped  from  the 
heroic  plays  of  John  Dryden,  and  appealed  to  the 
same  kind  of  romantic  interest  as  the  Englishman's 
dramas.  The  work  enjoyed  great  popularity,  not 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  47 

only  in  Denmark,  but  also  in  Germany,  Holland, 
and  Sweden. 

In  1741,  Holberg  published  at  Leipzig  (probably 
with  the  idea  of  evading  the  censor  in  Copenhagen) 
the  first  Latin  version  of  his  JViels  Klirn^ s  Subter- 
ranean Journey.  This  work,  written  years  before, 
the  author  asserts  he  had  never  intended  to  publish, 
because  he  dreaded,  at  his  age,  the  attacks  of  those 
morose  critics  —  the  pietists,  of  course  —  who  re- 
garded all  facetious  writing  as  an  offence  to  God. 
A  bookseller,  however,  persuaded  him,  against  his 
better  judgement,  to  sell  the  manuscript.  Holberg 
realized  that  the  work  would  be  fiercely  assailed. 
It  is  an  account  of  a  series  of  visits  which  Niels 
Klim  pays  to  a  number  of  strange  nations  situated 
within  the  hollow  of  the  earth ;  and,  like  Robinson 
Crusoe^  its  partial  prototype,  contains  much  pointed 
satire  directed  against  the  customs  of  contemporary 
society. 

The  success  of  Niels  Klim  was  enormous.  Be- 
fore a  Danish  translation  had  been  made,  French, 
Dutch,  and  German  versions  appeared  ;  it  was  later 
translated  into  Swedish,  and  is  one  of  the  few  of 
Holberg' s  works  which  have  been  put  into  English.  * 
When  the  Danish  version  was  published,  in  1742, 
it  was  greeted  with  the  disapproval  which  Holberg 
had  expected.  It  was  roundly  attacked,  and  its  tend- 
ency misrepresented ;  but  Holberg,  whose  position 


48  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

at  the  university  was  then  secure,  was  not  for  the 
moment  drawn  into  the  controversy.  He  defended 
the  work,  however,  in  his  third  Autobiographical 
Epistle,  written  in  1743,  where  he  asserts  bitterly 
that  he  will  never  be  persuaded  to  attempt  satirical 
writing  again.  Holberg  at  sixty  was  not  only  more 
eager  for  peace  than  at  thirty -five,  when  he  wrote 
Peeler  Paars^  but  he  had  come  to  realize  the  futility 
of  any  attempt  to  introduce  the  urbane  humanism 
of  the  eighteenth  century  into  Denmark, —  at  least 
so  long  as  a  religious  bigot  occupied  the  Danish 
throne. 

Holberg  clearly  indicated  in  another  way  his  de- 
spair of  gaining  a  hearing  for  his  satires  at  home. 
In  this  year,  1746,  he  managed  to  have  twenty- 
six  of  his  comedies  translated  into  French  by  one 
G.  Fursmann,  who  lived  in  Copenhagen.  Five  of 
them,  thus  put  into  French,  were  printed  in  a  volume 
called  Le  Theatre  Danoispar  Mr.  Louis  Holberg.  To 
this  volume  Holberg  contributed  a  preface,  in  which 
he  asserts  vigorously  the  superiority  of  Moliere's 
plays  and  of  his  own  to  those  sentimental  comedies 
then  in  favour  both  in  France  and  in  Denmark.  It 
was  hardly  to  be  expected,  however,  that  a  public 
which  had  lost  interest  in  Moliere  could  be  argued 
into  accepting  Holberg.  The  first  volume  of  the 
Theatre  Da?iois,  in  fact,  sold  so  poorly  that  no  sec- 
ond one  was  printed. 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  49 

After  this  disappointing  literary  venture,  Hol- 
berg  turned  back  to  historical  writing  with  a  kind 
of  grim  determination.  Having  nothing  under  way, 
he  chose,  rather  arbitrarily,  to  compose  a  history  of 
the  Jews  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  work,  undertaken  and  carried  out  as 
an  illustration  of  that  spirit  of  religious  tolerance  for 
which  he  persistently  pleaded,  was  published  in  two 
large  quarto  volumes  under  the  title  of  The  His- 
tory of  the  Jewish  People.  In  1743,  he  published  a 
second  volume  of  Opuscula  Latina^  a  new  collection 
of  Latin  epigrams,  and  his  third  Autobiographical 
Epistle.  Besides  the  straightforward  narrative  of  his 
life,  the  last  document  contains  an  essay,  written 
with  a  little  of  an  old  man's  diffuseness,  about  his 
own  character,  his  favourite  books,  and  the  dura- 
ble satisfactions  of  his  life.  In  somewhat  the  same 
tone  of  benevolent  wisdom  is  a  collection  of  so-called 
Moral  Reflections,  which  he  published  in  the  fol- 
lowing year.  These  short  essays  are  based  on  texts 
taken  from  his  Latin  epigrams,  and  are  half-serious, 
half-humorous.  They  range  in  subject  from  a  sin- 
cere plea  for  religious  tolerance  to  a  half-jocose  warn- 
ing to  a  young  girl  not  to  marry  an  officer. 

In  1745,  a  German  version  of  Don  Ranudo  ap- 
peared at  Leipzig,  and  later  in  the  same  year  a 
Danish  edition  at  Copenhagen.  The  only  plausible 
reason  for  Holberg's  keeping  this  play  out  of  print 


50  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

so  long  is  that  he  had  never  been  satisfied  with  the 
form  in  which  he  had  written  it.*  Even  the  edition 
of  1745  was  published  by  accident.  The  author's 
manuscript  was  lent  to  a  friend,  from  whom  it  fell 
into  the  hands  of  a  printer ;  and  he,  without  asking 
the  author's  leave,  printed  the  play.  Don  Jiafiudowas 
thus  the  only  one  of  Holberg's  comedies  to  be  printed 
singly  during  his  lifetime.  It  was,  furthermore,  the 
first  to  have  his  name  upon  a  Danish  tide-page. 

In  the  same  year  he  published  his  Comparative 
Histories  of  Various  Heroines  and  Famous  Women^ 
a  companion  piece  to  his  Comparative  Histories  of 
Various  Heroes.  It  was  written  to  prove  the  justice 
of  his  belief  that  women  are  worthy  both  of  higher 
education  and  political  enfranchisement.  This  the- 
ory he  mentions  briefly  in  his  preface,  because,  as 
he  justly  says,  his  ideas  on  the  subject  were  already 
well  known.  He  had  set  them  forth  at  length  in 
his  Nille  Hansen'' s  Apology  for  Women.,  in  parts  of 
Niels  Klim^  and  particularly  in  his  introduction  to 
the  lives  of  Zenobia  and  Catherine  Alexiewna,  which 
he  had  already  included  in  his  Histories  of  Heroes. 

IV 

Early  in  August,  1746,  the  morose  Christian  VI 
died,  and  with  him  disappeared  the  obscurantist 
devotional  life  of  the  court.  Frederik  V,  the  twenty- 
three-year-old  Crown  Prince,  who  became  king  on 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  51 

August  6,  1746,  was  known  to  be  quite  as  intelli- 
gent and  devoted  a  patron  of  art  as  Frederik  IV 
had  been.  Almost  immediately  after  the  coronation, 
Carl  August  Thielo,  the  German  court  organist 
under  Christian  VI,  applied  for  the  privilege  of  giv- 
ing plays  in  Copenhagen  again.  In  his  petition  he 
professed  a  desire  to  present  comedy  "according 
to  the  plan  which  has  been  established  by  Ludvig 
Holberg  in  his  Danish  comedies,  which  have  been 
formerly  produced  here.  "When,  therefore,  we  find 
his  patent  granting  him  the  right  to  proceed  ' '  ac- 
cording to  the  plan  which  previously  our  beloved 
Ludvig  Holberg  has  established,"  we  must  not 
infer  that  Holberg  had  formulated  a  detailed  plan  for 
the  management  of  the  new  theatre.  The  patent 
merely  intended  to  suggest  vaguely  that  Holberg 's 
comedies  were  to  be  the  criterion  by  which  produc- 
tions at  the  new  theatre  were  to  be  judged. 

The  reorganized  company  contained  one  mem- 
ber of  Montaigu's  original  troupe,  Pilloi,  and  he 
undertook  the  instruction  of  new  actors.  Holberg, 
although  he  seems  to  have  agreed  to  advise  the  com- 
pany about  its  repertory,*  had  no  official  connec- 
tion with  it.  On  May  3,  1747,t  the  company  began 
to  play  in  a  small  building  called  Berg's  House, 
in  Laedergade.  The  drama  was  Holberg 's  Political 
Tinker.  Of  the  fifty  performances  given  in  this 
little  theatre,  by  far  the  greater  number  were  pre- 


52  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

sentations  of  Holberg's  comedies.  Besides  all  the  old 
favourites,  the  company  produced  three  completely 
new  plays,  H oiwurable  Ambition^  Erasmus Montanus^ 
and  Invisible  Ijadies.  In  the  latter  part  of  the  year, 
the  king  gave  the  company  a  piece  of  land  very 
near  the  site  of  the  present  Royal  Theatre  on  Kon- 
gens  Nytorv.  A  building  called  the  Tar  House,  then 
standing  on  the  land,  was  used  as  the  company's 
theatre  from  December,  1747,  until  the  following 
June.  As  soon  as  the  company  received  recognition 
and  support  from  the  government,  its  direction  was 
put  into  the  hands  of  a  committee,  composed  of  Pilloi 
the  actor,  a  royal  councillor,  and  two  prosperous  mer- 
chants. Strangely  enough,  Holberg  was  not  made  a 
member  of  the  board  of  directors.  If  his  connection 
with  the  company  had  been  as  close  as  many  of  his 
biographers  assert,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  been 
chosen  to  that  office.  So  long  as  the  company  occu- 
pied the  Tar  House,  it  continued  to  give  Holberg's 
plays  the  most  prominent  place  in  its  repertory.  Yet 
it  played  scarcely  fewer  of  the  translations  of  Moliere 
and  Regnard. 

Early  in  the  year  1748,  Julius  von  Quoten,  an 
enterprising  manager,  set  up  a  rival  theatre  in  Stor 
Kongensgade.  He  started  with  a  novel  and  ambi- 
tious plan,  proposing  to  give  four  performances  each 
week,  two  in  German  and  two  in  Danish,  and  to 
bring  out  many  new  plays.  But  he  found  the  public 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  53 

had  so  strong  a  preference  for  Holberg's  works  that 
he  was  compelled,  not  only  to  give  these  frequently 
in  Danish,  but  also  to  present  them  on  his  German 
days  in  Detharding's  translations.  Von  Quoten's 
enterprise,  in  spite  of  his  willingness  to  humour  the 
taste  of  the  public,  was  short-lived.  In  May,  1748, 
he  rented  his  building  to  the  Royal  Actors,  who 
used  it  as  a  temporary  theatre  while  their  new  struc- 
ture on  Kongens  Nytorv  was  being  built.  The  Royal 
Actors  at  this  time  played  Holberg  less  and  less. 
Translations  of  Moliere,  Regnard,  and  Destouches 
enjoyed  for  the  moment  a  much  greater  popularity. 
Of  the  forty  pieces  given  in  Berg's  House  from  June 
to  December,  only  four  were  by  Holberg. 

On  December  18,  1748,  the  new  theatre  was 
dedicated  with  appropriate  ceremony.  Plays  were 
of  course  given,  but  none  of  Holberg's.  Besides  a 
prologue  composed  especially  for  the  occasion,  the 
bill  was  made  up  of  Regnard 's  Le  Joueur  and  La- 
font's  Trois  Freres Rivaux .T\\G  management  doubt- 
less thought  that  because  these  plays  were  written 
in  verse  in  the  original,  they  suited  better  the  dig- 
nity of  the  occasion.  Holberg  must  have  felt  some 
chagrin  in  seeing  the  National  Theatre,  which  he 
had  done  more  than  anyone  else  to  create,  dedicated 
without  so  much  as  a  mention  of  his  comedies.  He 
beheved,  with  some  justice,  that  the  first  board  of 
directors  disliked  his  work,  and  he  criticised  again 


54  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

and  again  their  selection  of  plays,  and  particularly 
their  ruining  the  taste  of  the  public  with  repeated 
productions  of  Destouches.  Holberg's  own  taste  in 
drama  seems  to  have  been  distinctly  limited.  By 
drama  he  really  meant  comedy,  and  comedy  of  but 
one  sort.  Tragedy  seemed  to  him  affected  and  bom- 
bastic. He  thought  that  romantic  plays  were  written 
more  for  the  eye  than  for  the  ear,  and  were  irregu- 
lar in  form  and  trifling  in  substance ;  that  pointless 
physical  farce  and  horse-play  ought  to  disgust  all 
sensible  men ;  and  that  comedies  of  mere  dialogue, 
like  those  of  Destouches,  did  not  possess  enough 
action  to  illustrate  and  establish  dramatic  characters. 
Besides  his  own  comedies,  he  seems  to  havelikedfew 
save  those  of  Moliere  and  one  or  two  of  Regnard. 
After  January,  1750,  two  vacancies  on  the  board 
of  directors  were  filled  by  men  with  whom  Holberg 
soon  grew  to  be  on  the  best  of  terms.  In  the  spring 
of  1751,  under  their  direction,  Holberg's  new  play, 
Plutus,  was  produced.  According  to  the  author,  it 
was  received  with  great  enthusiasm  by  both  young 
and  old,  who  agreed  in  pronouncing  it  one  of  his 
best  works.  Its  success  stimulated  Holberg  again 
to  eager  and  rapid  composition.  In  the  latter  part  of 
1750,  he  wrote  Sganarelle's  Journey  to  the  Philoso- 
phical Land.,  The  Ghost  in  the  House.,  A  Philosopher 
in  his  Chun  Estimation,  and  The  Republic.  The  first 
of  these  plays  was  produced  in  the  Royal  Theatre 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  55 

on  December  1,  1751,  and  the  second  on  Novem- 
ber 3,  1752.  The  production  of  The  Ghost  in  the 
House ^  in  which  there  were  no  women,  led  certain 
of  the  author's  friends  to  ask  him  to  write  a  compan- 
ion piece,  in  which  no  men  should  appear.  His  reply 
was  The Bndegrooni' s Metamorphosis^  a  comedy  in- 
tended as  an  after-piece  to  The  Ghost  in  the  House. 
The  play  was  never  presented  in  this  way.  In  fact, 
it  was  not  acted  at  all  until  the  year  1883.  A  Phi- 
losopher in  his  Own  Estimation  and  The  Republic 
were  played  first  in  1754,  shortly  after  Holberg's 
death.  During  the  years  immediately  preceding, 
Witchcraft^  Don  Ranudo^  and  The  Fortunate  Ship- 
wreck were  given  their  first  production. 

In  the  six  comedies  of  Holberg's  old  age  we  miss 
that  spirited  criticism  of  his  contemporaries  which 
is  the  life  of  his  earlier  work.  He  has  become  con- 
sciously and  often  heavily  moral.  He  seems  to  be 
purposely  running  counter  to  the  French  taste  of 
the  time,  which,  imported  into  Copenhagen,  made 
audiences  there  delight  above  all  in  Destouches. 
The  plays,  moreover,  are  either  imitative  or  the 
result  of  indirect  observation  of  life.  The  Ghost  in 
the  House  is  little  but  a  translation  from  Plautus ; 
Sganarelle'' s  Journey  is  a  dramatic  treatment  of  a 
part  of  Niels  Klim ;  and  The  Republic  is  a  satire  on 
project-makers,  whom  he  had  already  much  more 
humorously  ridiculed  in  The  Political  Tinker.  In- 


56  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

teresting  as  these  comedies  may  be  as  evidence  of 
the  dramatist's  intellectual  interests  in  later  life,  they 
are  of  little  importance  as  works  of  art. 

The  last  years  of  Holberg's  Hfe  were  spent  in 
peace  and  affluence.  Since  1740  he  had  owned  a 
country  estate  at  Tersl0segaard.  From  that  date 
until  his  death  he  spent  his  summers  in  the  stately 
house  which  has  recently  been  made  into  a  national 
museum.  There  he  did  all  in  his  power  to  make  the 
lot  of  his  own  peasants  as  different  as  possible  from 
that  of  his  famous  character,  poor  Jeppe  of  the  Hill. 
Holberg,  who  had  always  thought  his  plays  of  value 
chiefly  because  they  were  "moral  comedies,"  con- 
sidered his  life  as  of  most  value  when  he  was  per- 
forming unselfishly  the  duties  of  a  good  citizen. 

The  disposition  which  he  made  of  his  money  in 
his  will  showed  his  eagerness  to  continue  to  be  a 
benefit  to  society  even  after  his  death.  Having  never 
married,  and  being  without  heirs,  he  had  long 
planned  to  bequeath  his  estate  to  some  public  insti- 
tution. At  one  time  he  thought  of  establishing  a  fund 
for  the  support  of  Danish  writers ;  but  as  the  read- 
ing public  in  Denmark  grew  in  size  and  intelligence, 
such  a  legacy  became  less  and  less  necessary.  At 
another  time  he  arranged  to  leave  part  of  his  estate 
as  a  dowry  fund  for  poor  "virtuous  girls,"  *  but  no 
bequest  for  such  a  purpose  appears  in  his  final  will. 
His  own  sense  of  humour  evidently  did  not  allow 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  57 

him,  an  old  bachelor,  to  make  such  a  bequest.  Be- 
sides, he  fortunately  saw  a  chance  to  devote  his 
money  to  the  promotion  of  the  very  thing  he  held 
most  dear,  the  free  and  natural  study  of  the  Danish 
language  and  literature.  Early  in  Christian  VI's 
reign,  a  plan  for  reopening  the  Academy  at  Sor0, 
which  had  been  closed  since  1665,  was  proposed. 
The  necessary  buildings  were  erected  during  the 
reign  of  Christian  VI,  but  the  school  still  found  it- 
self without  funds  for  running  expenses.  Holberg 
approved  heartily  of  the  project.  He  felt  sure  that 
this  school,  free  from  the  rigid  and  narrowing  tra- 
ditions of  the  university,  could  devote  itself  with 
peculiar  directness  to  the  subjects  which  he  believed 
needed  cultivation.  Accordingly,  he  willed  it  his 
estates  at  Brorup  and  Tersl0segaard,  with  all  their 
appurtenances,  and  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 
By  a  later  will,  the  terms  of  which  he  made  public, 
he  added  all  the  rest  of  his  possessions  in  land,  and 
his  entire  library.  The  Crown  showed  its  apprecia- 
tion of  these  gifts  by  elevating  the  donor  to  the  rank 
of  baron  on  March  6,  1747. 

This  honour  made  no  difference  in  the  simple, 
dignified  manner  of  Holberg's  life,  or  in  his  assidu- 
ous literary  activity.  His  last  years  were  devoted 
to  the  composition  of  his  Epistles.  Like  his  Moral 
Reflections,  these  are  essays  on  all  sorts  of  serious 
subjects,  theological,  philosophical,  and  aesthetic, 


58  HOLBERG'S  LIFE 

occasionally  frankly  humorous  and  satirical.  Four 
volumes  of  the  Epistles  were  published  in  the  year 
1748-50,  and  a  fifth  volume  posthumously.  His 
last  literary  work  of  any  importance  was  his  Moral 
Fables,  published  in  1751,  for  which  almost  no  critic 
has  a  good  word.  The  date  of  the  curious  transla- 
tion of  Metastasio's  UArtaserse  cannot  be  definitely 
determined.  It  was  arranged  as  an  heroic  play  in 
prose,  with  incidental  songs  and  arias,  but  never 
played  until  January,  1757,  when  Holberg's  prose 
was  put  into  verse.  The  most  probable  time  for  the 
composition  of  this  bit  of  dramatic  hackwork  seems 
to  be  the  year  1752,  when  for  a  few  months  Hol- 
berg  took  the  place  of  his  friend  Rappe  as  president 
of  the  directors  of  the  theatre. 

During  the  last  years  of  Holberg's  life,  he  had 
been  troubled  with  an  increasingly  severe  affection 
of  the  lungs.  In  August,  1753,  when  he  returned  to 
Copenhagen  from  the  country,  he  had  grown  so 
weak  that  he  realized  he  could  live  but  Httle  longer. 
His  will  and  nervous  force  were  so  strong,  however, 
that  he  survived  until  January  28,  1754.  The  Royal 
Theatre,  which  his  work  had  created  and  main- 
tained, took  no  official  notice  of  his  death.  In  those 
days  no  one  would  have  thought  a  theatre  a  fittmg 
place  for  any  service  of  commemoration.  Holberg 
was  buried  as  he  had  lived,  simply,  almost  un- 
noticed by  his  fellow  citizens.  He  lies  buried  in  the  ** 


HOLBERG'S  LIFE  59 

old  cathedral  at  Sor0,  by  the  side  of  the  great 
Bishop  Absalom.  And  this  mighty  mediaeval  pre- 
late and  warrior  seems  no  unfit  companion  for  the 
keen  modern  satirist  who  made  the  Danish  bour- 
geoisie laugh  at  itself. 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 


CHAPTER  II 

HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

OF  all  the  results  of  Holberg's  varied  literary 
activity,  only  his  comedies  have  retained  an 
important  place  in  Danish  literature,  and  they  alone 
will  be  considered  in  this  study.  These  plays,  with 
but  few  exceptions,  were  composed  between  the 
years  1722  and  1728,  during  the  time  in  which  the 
Danish  theatre  was  making  its  first  struggle  for 
existence.  They  were  nearly  all  the  fruit  of  the  same 
dramatic  impulse.  Holberg's  art  sprang  full-grown 
from  the  brain  of  a  ripened  scholar  and  very  shrewd 
observer  of  the  world.  It  shows  no  gradual  logical 
development.  During  the  reign  of  Christian  VI  it 
seems  to  have  lapsed  completely,  so  that  the  six 
comedies  which  Holberg  wrote  after  1746  are,  in 
most  respects,  quite  unlike  his  earlier  ones.  They 
are  either  adaptations  of  comedies  of  classical  anti- 
quity, or  rigidly  moral  works,  in  which  the  author's 
invention  falters  and  his  wit  fails.  We  are  unable, 
therefore,  to  trace  from  play  to  play  the  gradual 
growth  of  Holberg' s  dramatic  power.  We  must  sub- 
stitute for  this  conventional  method  an  analysis  of 
a  remarkable  art  which  even  at  its  first  appearance 
seems  to  have  been  mature. 
Holberg's  plays  maybe  classified  under  four  heads  :* 


64  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

I.  Domestic  Comedies  of  Character^  which  hold  up 
to  ridicule  the  foibles  of  some  one  central  figure,  as 
they  are  revealed  in  his  relations  with  a  well-organ- 
ized family  group.  Although  the  plots  of  these  plays 
are  occasionally  resohed  by  the  tricks  of  a  conven- 
tional servant  or  even  by  an  elaborate  intrigue,  the 
dramatic  interest  is  always  focused  upon  the  central 
character  and  the  situations  in  which  his  foibles  in- 
volve both  him  and  his  family .  Here  may  be  grouped : 
The  Political  Tinker^  Jean  de  France^  The  Busy 
Man,  Jeppe  of  the  Hill,  The  Lying-in  Chamber, 
Honourable  Ambition,  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck,  Eras- 
mus Montanus,  Don  Ranudo  di  Colibrados,  Pemille'' s 
ShoH  Experience  as  a  Lady,  and  The  Bridegroom'^ s 
Metamorphosis. 

II.  Simple  Comedies  of  Character,  in  which  the 
dramatic  milieu  is  not  the  family  in  any  organized 
sense.  The  emphasis  in  these  plays  is  laid,  however, 
no  less  clearly  than  in  those  of  the  first  type,  on  the 
exhibition  of  some  ridiculous  foible  of  one  central 
character.Heremay  be  grouped:  The  Fickle-minded 
Woman,  Without  Head  or  Tail,  Master  Gert  West- 

phaler,  Invisible  Ladies,  and  A  Philosopher  in  His 
Own  Estimation. 

III.  Comedies  of  Intrigue,  in  which  the  interest  is 
mainly  concentrated  upon  a  series  of  tricks,  usually 
devised  and  managed  by  roguish  servants,  who 
bring    about    bewildering    confusions    of  identity 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  65 

through  their  numerous  elaborate  disguises.  Hol- 
berg's  comedies  of  this  sort  differ  from  his  simple 
comedies  of  character  only  in  dramatic  emphasis. 
The  butt  of  all  the  tricks  is,  of  course,  a  figure  of 
some  individuality;  yet  the  emphasis  is  laid,  not 
upon  the  display  and  progress  of  his  characteristic 
foible,  but  rather  upon  the  humour  of  trickery,  for 
which  alone  he  exists.  Here  may  be  grouped:  The 
Eleventh  of  June,  Masquerades,  Henrich  and  Per- 
nille,  Arabian  Powder,  The  Journey  to  the  Spring, 
Jacob  von  Tybo,  Christmas  Eve,  The  Peasant  Boy  in 
Pawn,  Diderich,  Terror  of  Mankind,  and  A  Ghost 
ill  the  House. 

IV.  Comedies  of  Manners:  Melampe,  Ulysses  von 
Ithacia,  Witchcraft,  Plutus,  The  Republic,  and  Sga- 
narelle'' s  Journey  to  the  Philosophical  Land.  No  two 
of  these  plays  are  at  all  alike,  but  each  one  satirizes 
some  social  or  political  folly  which  is  not  treated  as 
the  particular  foible  of  an  individual. 

The  plays  included  in  the  first  of  the  four  classes 
comprise  Holberg's  most  original  and  effective  work. 
In  them  appear,  almost  without  exception,  those  fig- 
ures familiar  to  every  Danish  schoolboy.  The  dra- 
matic method  which  the  author  employs  seems 
entirely  adequate  for  his  purpose.  Although  no  sin- 
gle comedy  can  illustrate  satisfactorily  all  Holberg's 
virtues  of  method,  the  plot  of  Erasmus  Montanus 


66  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

may  be  regarded  as  fairly  representative  of  his  best 
technique. 

In  the  first  scene  of  this  play  we  are  introduced 
into  the  home  of  a  typical  Danish  peasant,  Jeppe 
Berg.  He  is  attempting  to  read  a  letter  from  his  son 
Rasmus,  a  student  at  the  University  of  Copenhagen. 
In  accordance  with  the  academic  pedantry  of  the 
time,  the  young  man  has  transformed  his  name 
Rasmus  Berg  into  the  more  dignified  Erasmus  Mon- 
tanus;  and  he  has  further  shown  his  proper  respect 
for  the  language  of  learning  by  filling  his  letter  so 
full  of  Latin  that  his  poor  father  can  make  nothing  of 
it.  Jeppe  is  compelled,  therefore,  to  enlist  the  aid  of 
the  one  supposedly  learned  man  of  the  countryside, 
Peter,  the  fat  and  blear-eyed  deacon.  His  transla- 
tions, although  satisfactory  to  Jeppe  and  his  eager 
wife  Nille,  are  far  from  accurate.  Logica  he  trans- 
lates by  "pulpit,"  rhetorica  by  "ritual;"  and  be- 
cause he  has  never  seen  the  word  tnetaphysica,  he  is 
quite  sure  that  it  must  be  French.  He  hastens  to  ex- 
plain to  Jeppe  that  Latin  has  changed  radically  since 
his  day,  and  proves  his  mastery  of  old-fashioned 
Latin  by  reciting  vocabularies  remembered  from  his 
First  Latin  Book.  Flushed  by  the  review  of  his  own 
learning,  he  boldly  offers  to  meet  Erasmus  in  a  con- 
test either  in  singing  or  in  academic  disputation. 
This  spirited  conversation  is  interrupted  by  the  en- 
trance of  Lisbed,  Rasmus's  betrothed.  She  has  come 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  67 

with  her  father  and  mother  to  find  out  when  her 
lover  will  reach  home.  The  girl  shows  an  inane  and 
not  very  maidenly  longing  for  her  sweetheart,  and 
is  harshly  rebuked  by  her  father  for  the  unseemly 
display  of  her  elemental  love.  She  pays  little  atten- 
tion to  the  scolding,  because  at  this  moment  Ras- 
mus's younger  brother  Jacob  enters  with  the  excit- 
ing news  that  the  scholar  has  already  arrived.  More- 
over, he  has  heard  conclusive  proofs  of  his  brother's 
magnificent  erudition.  The  driver  of  Rasmus's  cart 
on  the  way  home  has  told  that  the  scholar  lay  prone 
upon  the  floor  of  the  wagon  during  the  entire  jour- 
ney, disputing  incessantly  with  himself;  and  that 
at  least  twice,  while  gazing  at  the  moon,  deep  in 
philosophic  speculation,  he  fell  out  of  the  wagon, 
and  so  nearly  broke  his  neck  —  from  sheer  learning ! 
With  this  announcement,  the  first  act  closes. 

The  principal  character  has  not  appeared,  though 
from  the  very  opening  of  the  play  he  has  been  the 
centre  of  interest.  Each  of  the  minor  characters,  nev- 
ertheless, has  become  a  distinct  and  striking  indi- 
vidual. The  first  act,  therefore,  besides  arousing  a 
keen  interest  in  this  important  figure,  has  created  a 
very  real  domestic  milieu  in  which  he  is  to  display 
himself. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  act,  Erasmus 
himself  enters,  with  his  stockings  falling  down  over 
the  calves  of  his  legs,  and  presenting  in  general  a 


68  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

farcically  exaggerated  picture  of  learned  preoccupa- 
tion. He  immediately  bewails  the  lack  of  those  aca- 
demic disputes  which  have  become  his  sole  delight. 
The  first  member  of  the  family  to  greet  the  home- 
sick scholar  is  his  young  brother  Jacob.  Erasmus, 
horrified  at  being  called  "brother"  by  this  mere 
farmer's  boy,  promptly  orders  him  to  call  him  there- 
after Monsieur  Montanus.  He  then  attempts  to  im- 
press Jacob  still  further  by  explaining  the  difficult 
nature  of  his  profession. 

Montanus.  Do  you  know  what  disputation  is  ? 

Jacob.  Of  course  !  I  dispute  here  every  day  with  the  girls  in  the 
house,  but  it  doesn't  do  me  any  good. 

Montanus.  Oh,  yes !  Thatkind  of  disputation  is  common  enough. 

Jacob.  Well,  what  is  it  that  you  dispute  about,  Monsir? 

Montanus.  Oh,  I  hold  disputations  about  important  and  learned 
things, — for  example,  whether  angels  were  created  before 
men,  whether  the  earth  is  round  or  oval,  about  the  sun, moon, 
and  stars,  their  size  and  distance  from  the  earth,  and  other 
similar  matters. 

Jacob.  No,  that 's  not  the  kind  of  thing  I  dispute  about.  Nothing 
of  that  sort  makes  a  bit  of  difference  to  me.  If  I  can  only 
get  folk  to  work,  they  may  say  for  all  I  care  that  the  earth  is 
eight-cornered. 

Montanus.  O,  animal  brutum  ! 

Finally,  Jacob's  crude  pragmatism  and  his  com- 
plete lack  of  respect  for  the  philosopher's  exalted 
calling  so  exasperate  Erasmus  that  he  flings  his  book 
at  his  brother's  head.  The  uproar  of  this  unaca- 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  69 

demic  disputation  brings  in  both  Jeppe  and  Nille. 
After  stoutly  taking  Erasmus's  part,  they  try  to 
soothe  his  indignation  at  Jacob's  ignorance  by  prom- 
ising him  that  he  will  find  a  worthy  fellow  scholar 
in  Peter  the  deacon,  a  man  who  both  in  his  sing- 
ing and  in  his  preaching  has  given  abundant  evi- 
dence of  sound  learning.  Erasmus  contemptuously 
disposes  of  claims  to  erudition  based  on  such  ac- 
complishments, and  shows  what  real  learning  is 
by  giving  an  exhibition  of  the  power  of  his  own 
dialectic. 

Montanus.  Little  Mother,  I  will  turn  you  into  a  stone. 

Nille.  Nonsense  !  Even  learning  can't  do  tliat. 

Montanus.  Well,  you  just  listen  !  A  stone  cannot  fly. 

Nille.  That 's  so,  not  unless  it 's  thrown. 

Montanus.  You  cannot  fly. 

Nille.  That 's  so,  too. 

Montanus.  Ergo,  Little  Mother  is  a  stone.  (^Nille  cries.)  .  .  . 

What  are  you  crying  about  ? 
Nille.  Oh,  I  am  so  afraid  that  I  shall  turn  into  a  stone ;  my  legs 

begin  to  feel  cold  already! 
Montanus.  Don't  worry.  Little  Mother,  I  will  turn  you  right 

back  into  a  human  being  again.  A  stone  can  neither  think 

nor  talk. 
Nille.  That 's  so.  I  don't  know  whether  it  can  think  or  not,  but 

it  surely  can't  talk. 
Montanus.  Little  Mother  can  talk. 
Nille.  Yes,  thank  God!  I  talk  as  well  as  a  poor  peasant  woman 

can. 


70  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

Erasmus.  Well !  Ergo,  Little  Mother  is  no  stone. 
Nille.  Oh,  tliat  's  good.  Now  I  feel  like  myself  again.  Gracious, 
it  takes  strong  heads  to  bear  study. 

In  these  few  scenes  the  main  elements  of  Erasmus's 
nature  are  fully  developed.  His  insufferable  intel- 
lectual conceit,  through  which  the  undisciplined  feel- 
ings of  a  spoiled  peasant  boy  continually  appear, 
is  realisdcally  drawn,  with  little  or  no  exaggeration. 
In  what  follows  Erasmus  changes  little.  But  as  he 
displays  the  same  ridiculous  foible  to  one  char- 
acter after  another,  each  reacts  in  his  own  way.  He 
shocks  his  prospective  father-in-law  by  asserting 
that  the  world  is  round.  The  old  man  is  so  horrified 
by  this  piece  of  atheism  that  he  utterly  refuses  to 
let  his  daughter  marry  Erasmus,  unless  he  makes 
a  complete  recantation,  a  thing  which  the  scholar 
self-righteously  refuses  to  do. 

Montanus.  I  love  your  daughter  more  than  my  own  soul,  but 
surely  you  can't  wish  me  for  her  sake  to  renounce  my  intel- 
lect and  to  give  up  philosophy ! 

Jeronimus.  Ha,  ha  I  So  you  have  another  girl,  have  you?  You 
are  welcome  to  your  Lucy  or  Sophie ;  I  will  not  force  my 
daughter  upon  you. 

In  the  meantime,  with  his  adoring  parents  and 
Jesper  the  bailiff  for  audience,  Erasmus  has  had 
his  long  promised  debate  with  Peter  the  deacon. 
The  wily  churchman  answers  Erasmus's  interroga- 
tions with  the  only  Latin  he  knows,  grammatical 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  71 

rules  that  he  learned  at  school.  The  listeners,  par- 
ticularly Jesper,  are  enormously  impressed  with  his 
glib  replies;  and  in  the  pedant's  exasperated  de- 
mand that  the  argument  be  carried  on  in  Danish, 
so  that  they  may  understand  the  nonsense  that  Peter 
is  talking,  his  auditors  find  an  admission  of  defeat. 
Nille  cries  in  chagrin.  The  scene  ends  in  a  fight 
between  Erasmus  and  Peter. 

When  the  two  next  meet,  the  scholar  shows  his 
contempt  for  the  deacon  by  proving  him  to  be  a 
cock.  Jesper,  who  has  been  an  outraged  witness  of 
this  insult  to  Peter,  first  contradicts  Erasmus's  con- 
clusion in  an  excited  answer,  which  has  every  ap- 
pearance of  being  categorical,  and  then  rushes  off 
to  plan  some  revenge.  He  finds  a  recruiting  officer,, 
whom  he  immediately  sets  upon  the  scholar.  The 
lieutenant  flatters  Erasmus  by  expressing  a  desire 
to  see  an  exhibition  of  his  famous  logical  method. 
He  bets  Erasmus  that  he  cannot  prove  that  it  is 
a  child's  duty  to  beat  his  parents.  This  proposition 
the  young  pedant  establishes  almost  automatically, 
merely  by  putting  an  argument  of  Pheidippides  in 
Aristophanes' s  Clouds  into  the  form  of  his  infallible 
dialectic.  The  lieutenant  acknowledges  the  scholar's 
triumph,  pays  him  the  wager,  and  then  maintains 
that  because  Erasmus  has  taken  the  king's  money, 
he  has  enlisted.  The  glib  man  of  words  is  helpless  in 
the  hands  of  this  masterful  soldier,  who  drills  him 


72  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

Avith  exaggerated  military  severity.  Finally,  Jeroni- 
mus  hears  of  the  plight  of  his  prospective  son-in- 
law,  and,  after  making  him  swear  that  the  earth  is 
"flat  as  a  pancake,"  bribes  the  lieutenant  to  free 
him.  Erasmus  thus  emerges  from  the  action  of  the 
play,  cured  of  his  intellectual  pride  and  his  insane 
love  for  disputation,  ready  for  an  ordinary  marriage 
with  Lisbed. 

The  method  of  the  play  is  very  like  that  employed 
in  the  rest  of  Holberg's  comedies  of  character.  The 
bourgeois  family  is  usually  composed  of  the  same 
members.  There  is  the  typical  middle-aged  father, 
sensible  and  kindly.  Though  called  Jeppe  in  this 
comedy,  he  almost  always  bears  the  name  Jeroni- 
mus.  Over  him  stands  the  mother,  unlike  Nille, 
the  absolute  ruler  of  the  household,  and  able  to  es- 
tablish her  wishes  there,  in  spite  of  any  feeble  pro- 
tests that  he  may  make.  Magdelone  is  the  conven- 
tional name  of  this  type  figure.  If  the  child  of  the 
two  old  people  is  a  daughter,  her  name  is  probably 
Leonora,  and  she  is  a  colourless  little  thing  who  is 
in  love  with  her  young  neighbour  Leander.  He  is 
a  faithful  lover  and  nothing  more.  If  the  amoroso  is 
the  child  of  Jeronimus  and  Magdelone,  his  beloved 
Leonora  is  the  daughter  of  some  friend  of  Jeroni- 
mus. This  second  old  man  is  often  little  more  than 
a  voice  of  common  sense,  like  Lisbed' s  father  in 
Erasmus  Montanus.  If  any  member  of  the  family  -^ 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  73 

becomes  the  figure  against  whom  the  ridicule  is  di- 
rected, he  loses  the  conventional  character  he  would 
possess  as  a  mere  member  of  the  family. 

The  entrance  of  the  principal  figure  into  this 
comparatively  normal  group  is  usually  postponed 
until  the  conversation  of  the  family  has  aroused  an 
expectant  interest  in  him.  In  their  expository  dia- 
logue they  draw  the  picture  of  which  his  subsequent 
actions  must  be  the  enlarged,  yet  faithful,  copy. 
His  exhibition  of  the  nature  attributed  to  him  is  re- 
peated two  or  three  times  for  no  other  dramatic  rea- 
son than  the  fun  for  the  spectators  in  the  exhibition 
itself  and  in  the  attitudes  which  the  other  charac- 
ters strike  before  it.  Only  after  such  scenes  of  expo- 
sition is  the  intrigue  contrived  which  precipitates 
the  denouement. 

In  many  of  Holberg's  domestic  comedies  of  char- 
acter the  denouement  is  managed  in  a  more  conven- 
tional way  than  in  Erasmus  Montanus. To  the  family 
are  added  the  very  important  servants,  Pernille, 
Leonora's  maid,  and  Henrich,  Leander's  man,  Hol- 
berg's equivalents  of  the  unnaturally  clever  intrigu- 
ers familiar  in  French  and  Italian  comedy  of  the 
time.  These  two  usually  devise  a  plot  for  the  osten- 
sible purpose  of  bringing  together  the  lovers,  who 
are  separated,  Hke  Erasmus  and  Lisbed,  as  a  result 
of  the  folly  of  the  central  character.  The  fundamen- 
tal dramatic  purpose  of  the  intrigue,  however,  is 


74  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

the  creation  of  a  situation  in  which  the  central  figure 
may  most  fully  display  his  foible.  By  clever  manip- 
ulation of  the  action,  the  servants  finally  make  him 
the  dupe  of  his  own  peculiarity,  and  therefore  ready 
to  see  it  as  the  folly  it  is.  If,  in  Erasmus  Montanus^ 
Lisbed  had  been  provided  with  a  maid  Pernille, 
who  had  induced  Henrich,  a  servant  of  Erasmus, 
to  disguise  himself  as  the  recruiting  officer,  for  the 
express  purpose  of  curing  the  pedant  of  the  foible 
which  was  proving  fatal  to  his  plans  for  marrying 
Lisbed ;  if  then  Henrich  had  assumed  the  disguise 
in  the  hope  of  winning  Pernille  for  his  wife,  and 
if  he  had  disciplined  Erasmus  into  normality,  then 
the  management  of  the  denouement  would  have  been 
entirely  typical. 

Erasmus  Montanus^  like  all  of  Holberg's  come- 
dies, is  composed  of  many  farcical  elements ;  yet  it 
is  by  no  means  so  completely  a  farce  as  it  inevit- 
ably seems  from  a  mere  resume  of  the  plot.  In  spite 
of  the  exaggerated  and  fantastic  action,  the  author 
succeeds  in  giving  us  a  memorable  series  of  genre 
pictures.  But  he  does  more  than  that.  His  realistic 
scenes  present  a  situation  of  universal  interest.* 
Erasmus  is  the  perennial  young  prig  who  has  acci- 
dentally assimilated  some  new  ideas.  His  stubborn 
adherence  to  them  is  a  sign,  not  so  much  of  right- 
eous conviction,  as  of  scornful  superiority  to  his  less 
intellectual  fellows.  Prizing  his  ideas  not  because 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  75 

they  are  true,  but  because  they  give  him  caste, 
he  displays  his  supreme  folly  in  his  devotion  to  so 
obvious  a  truth  as  the  roundness  of  the  world.  He 
represents,  therefore,  in  his  own  wrong-headed  way, 
the  enlightened  youth  of  every  generation  ;  and  his 
ideas  are  greeted  as  ignorance,  prejudice,  and  priv- 
ilege always  have  greeted  progressive  thought. 

Erasmus  and  his  ideas  raise  an  intellectual  up- 
roar in  the  village.  Each  apostle  of  the  old  order 
opposes  them  in  characteristic  fashion.  Jeppe  and 
Nille  have  no  notion  that  ideas  can  concern  the  hard 
routine  of  living.  Such  things  are  forms  of  personal 
peculiarity.  Jeppe  is  firmly  convinced  that  learned 
folk  are  always  a  little  crazy  and  so  must  be  treated 
with  indulgence.  Nille  considers  all  book  learning  a 
form  of  magic.  She  believes  that  her  son's  syllogisms 
are  spells  that  will  actually  turn  her  into  stone.  And 
when  the  parents  realize  that  the  formulas  of  Eras- 
mus, the  wizard,  are  to  have  disastrous  practical  ef- 
fects upon  the  life  of  Erasmus,  their  son,  they  regard 
the  former  with  hopeless  but  half-admiring  terror. 

The  opposition  of  Jeronimus,  the  pedant's  pro- 
spective father-in-law,  to  new  ideas  is  in  its  essence 
quite  as  unintellectual  as  the  distressed  wonder  of 
his  parents.  The  old  man  considers  himself,  how- 
ever, an  intellectual  leader,  because  he  has  by  his 
own  exertions  raised  himself  to  a  position  of  wealth 
and  importance  in  the  village.  His  inherited  ideas 


76  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

are  now  a  part  of  his  irreproachable  respectabiUty. 
Erasmus's  assault  upon  his  fundamental  notions 
is,  therefore,  an  insult  to  his  career  and  a  threat  to 
the  stability  of  the  entire  community.  As  a  man  of 
affairs,  he  takes  the  practical  steps  necessary  for 
reforming  the  young  heretic.  Jeronimus  represents 
a  type  of  restricted  intellect,  combined  with  the 
arrogance  that  attends  material  success,  which  is 
not  wholly  unknown  to-day. 

Jesper  the  bailiff  regards  himself  as  a  thorough 
man  of  the  world.  His  judgements  are  affected,  not 
by  any  prejudices,  but  solely  by  his  knowledge  of 
life.  He  therefore  greets  Erasmus's  strange  notions 
with  shouts  of  laughter.  It  is  wonderful  to  him  that 
the  learned  folk  of  Copenhagen  can  fall  into  such 
ridiculous  errors.  His  experience  as  a  man  confutes 
them  at  every  turn.  He  knows,  for  example,  that 
if  people  lived  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth  with 
their  heads  down,  they  would  speedily  fall  off  into 
the  abyss.  How  much  learned  men  are  in  need  of 
a  bailifTs  common  sense ! 

Finally,  there  is  Peter  the  deacon,  the  priest  of 
the  old  faith.  His  position  in  society,  his  livelihood, 
depends  on  the  persistence  of  the  old  notions.  His 
learning  is  not  sound,  but  it  has  passed  for  gospel 
in  the  village.  Let  it  be  shown  defective  in  any  par- 
ticular, and  morality  and  true  religion  will  forsake 
the  community.  Yet  his  faith  is  not  a  conviction; 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  77 

it  is  only  a  pious  formula.  He  cannot  argue  with 
Erasmus.  He  can  only  appeal  to  the  love  which 
his  parishioners  bear  him  to  justify  his  doctrine. 

Against  the  combined  attack  of  these  philistines, 
Erasmus  cannot  triumph.  He  has  not  enough  real 
belief  himself.  He  holds  his  opinions  only  because 
they  are  the  intellectual  fashion  at  the  university. 
Unable  to  stand  out  against  the  bigotry  of  tradi- 
tion, he  renounces  with  oaths  his  assertion  that  the 
world  is  round.  Prejudice  and  superstition  conquer 
the  truth,  partly  because  it  possesses  no  disinter- 
ested advocate,  partly  from  mere  weight  and  force 
of  numbers.  For  all  that,  there  is  nothing  tragic  or 
pathetic  in  the  pedant's  renunciation.  He  is  as  great 
a  fool  as  any  character  in  the  play.  Erasmus  Mon- 
tanus  is  thus  a  pure  comedy,  in  which  the  author's 
humour  plays  freely  and  impartially  upon  all  the 
characters,  and  it  is  because  the  characters  absorb 
our  interest  that  the  play  is,  in  spite  of  the  farcical 
nature  of  the  comic  action,  no  mere  farce.  Indeed, 
it  clearly  deserves  Professor  Vilhelm  Andersen's 
description,"  a  Danish  culture  comedy  of  universal 
significance." 

In  Jeppe  of  the  Hill,  Holberg  has  made  a  world- 
old  farce  a  vehicle  for  realistic  and  profound  deline- 
ation of  character.  Jeppe,  the  comic  hero,  is  an  ex- 
traordinarily complete  and  vivid  human  being.  Dr. 
Georg  Brandes  says  of  him :  ' '  All  that  we  should 


78  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

like  to  know  of  a  man  when  we  become  acquainted 
with  him,  and  much  more  than  we  usually  do 
know  of  the  men  with  whom  we  become  acquainted 
in  real  life  or  in  the  drama,  we  know  of  Jeppe. 
All  our  questions  are  answered."*  This  praise  is 
just.  We  know  not  only  the  conditions  under  which 
Jeppe  lives,  but  also  his  shrewd  opinions  of  men, 
and  even  the  attitude  with  which  he  will  meet 
death. 

Jeppe  in  the  first  act  is  a  wretch  cowed  into  ab- 
ject submission  to  everybody  and  everything.  His 
wife  Nille  beats  him ;  the  bailiff  forces  him  to  work 
like  a  beast  of  burden ;  and  the  deacon  quite  brazenly 
makes  him  a  cuckold.  The  morning  when  we  first 
see  the  wretched  man,  his  wife  hales  him  out  of  bed 
at  sunrise,  and,  threatening  him  with  her  whip, 
which  she  picturesquely  calls  Master  Erich,  she 
orders  him  to  walk  to  the  village  five  miles  away, 
to  buy  her  two  pounds  of  soft  soap.  With  an  empty 
stomach,  Jeppe  stumbles  out  to  accomplish  his 
cheerless  errand.  Inevitably  he  goes,  as  he  has  too 
often  gone  before,  directly  to  Jacob  Shoemaker's 
tavern.  This  miserable  place  is  his  one  refuge  from 
the  tyranny  of  his  shrewish  wife;  and  brandy  his 
one  source  of  happiness. 

The  greedy  innkeeper  will  not  trust  Jeppe,  and 
easily  persuades  him  to  spend  some  of  his  wife's 
soap-money  for  his  first  drink.  Under  the  genial  -* 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  79 

influence  of  the  brandy,  his  mind  reverts  to  the  one 
proud  recollection  of  his  life,  the  ten  years  he  served 
in  the  militia.  The  roseate  memories  of  his  some- 
what doubtful  military  daring  make  him  feel  so 
brave  that  he  swears  that  if  he  only  had  his  wife 
in  his  clutches  at  that  moment,  he  would  beat  her 
until  she  cried  for  mercy.  After  Jeppe  has  taken  his 
first  gulp,  he  is  utterly  unable  to  continue  his  jour- 
ney. Every  time  he  attempts  to  start,  the  temptation 
to  take  just  one  drink  more  brings  him  back  to  the 
alluring  bottle,  until  he  has  drunk  up  all  Nille's 
money.  Then  Jacob,  who  has  been  urging  him  to 
imbibe  as  long  as  his  cash  lasted,  realizes  that  Jeppe 
may  consume  more  than  is  good  for  him,  and  with 
a  pious  exclamation  of  horror  at  such  a  possibility, 
slams  the  door  in  his  face.  Poor  Jeppe  is  by  this  time 
very  drunk,  and,  although  he  makes  a  few  mechan- 
ical efforts  to  go  on  the  errand  that  he  now  only 
vaguely  remembers,  he  soon  falls  down  in  a  com- 
plete stupor.  The  wretched  peasant  is  no  less  a  vic- 
tim of  the  one  man  to  whom  he  comes  for  comfort, 
than  of  Nille,  the  bailiff",  and  the  deacon. 

In  the  second  act  Jeppe  awakes  in  the  baron's 
bed,  gorgeously  clothed,  and  attended  by  a  train  of 
obsequious  servants.  Like  a  true  peasant,  he  suffers 
no  embarrassment  at  finding  himself  the  apparent 
lord  of  all  this  grandeur.  The  problem  of  his  iden- 
tity does,  however,  perplex  him ;  and  he  wrestles 


80  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

with  that  with  all  the  ingenuity  of  his  native  wit. 
Is  he  asleep?  Is  he  still  really  Jeppe  the  peasant? 
At  last  he  decides  that  the  luxury  about  him  is  so 
much  greater  both  in  kind  and  degree  than  any- 
thing he  has  ever  imagined,  that  it  must  be  the 
perfect  felicity  of  paradise.  He  chuckles  to  think 
how  litde  he  deserves  heaven. 

When  he  is  finally  convinced  that  he  really  is  the 
baron,  he  begins  to  take  his  physical  pleasures  in 
great  gulps.  As  Dr.  Brandes  says, "  It  is  natural  for 
the  man  who  has  worked  like  a  horse  to  take  his 
pleasures  like  a  dog."  So,  after  eating  and  drinking 
his  fill,  he  is  eager  to  have  immediate  possession  of 
the  wife  of  the  baron's  bailiff.  For  years  he  has  been 
oppressed  by  a  fellow  of  this  sort.  Power,  therefore, 
means  to  him  the  opportunity  to  be  despotic  and 
arbitrary,  and  he  naturally  chooses  his  victims  from 
the  class  of  men  that  has  abused  him.  As  a  con- 
stant accompaniment  to  all  these  unusual  delights  of 
power,  he  continues  his  old  pleasure  of  drinking, 
though  now  fine  wines  take  the  place  of  raw  brandy. 
His  luxurious  carousal  ends,  however,  as  did  his 
wretched  brandy-tippling,  in  a  drunken  sleep.  Then 
he  is  stripped  of  his  finery  and  cast  out  again  upon 
the  dung-heap.  After  he  awakes,  half  believing  that 
he  has  made  a  brief  visit  to  heaven,  he  is  made  the 
victim  of  a  series  of  brutal  practical  jokes.  He  is 
subjected  to  a  pretended  arrest,  on  the  ground  that 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  81 

he  has  insinuated  himself  into  the  baron's  castle 
with  criminal  intent,  put  through  the  forms  of  a 
mock  trial,  condemned  to  take  poison,  and  to  have 
his  body  hung  up  at  the  cross-roads.  The  poison- 
ous draught,  however,  is  a  mere  sleeping-potion ; 
when  he  awakes  later  upon  the  gibbet,  he  believes 
that  he  has  died. 

We  are  grateful  for  all  this  wild  horse-play,  be- 
cause it  gives  Jeppe  opportunities  to  show  his  true 
character.  In  the  supposed  presence  of  death,  he 
exhibits  real  dignity  and  courage.  The  man  who 
has  been  desperately  afraid  of  Nille  and  cowed  by 
the  bailiff  and  the  clerk,  is  not  afraid  to  die.  He  does 
weep,  to  be  sure,  when  he  hears  his  advocate  plead 
for  him  ;  and  offers  him,  in  a  kind  of  maudlin  grati- 
tude, a  bit  of  his  chewing  tobacco.  But  when  the 
lawyer  refuses  the  gift  with  the  lofty  remark  that 
he  is  defending  him  solely  from  motives  of  Chris- 
tian charity,  he  quickly  recovers  his  shrewd  sense 
of  humour,  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  says  with 
mock  humility,"!  didn't  realize  that  you  men 
were  so  honourable."  The  tenderness  with  which 
he  takes  leave  of  his  daughter  Martha  and  of  his 
dappled  horse  shows  for  what  things  he  has  a  deep 
affection.  "Good-bye,  my  dappled  horse,"  he  says, 
"and  thanks  for  every  time  that  I  have  ridden  you. 
Next  to  my  own  children,  I  have  no  beast  that  I 
have  loved  as  much  as  you." 


82  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

The  illuminating  exposition  of  Jeppe's  charac- 
ter continues  throughout  the  leisurely  denouement  ol 
the  last  act.  When  on  the  gibbet,  in  conversation 
with  his  grief-stricken  wife,  he  adopts  the  generous, 
lofty  tone  that  should  be  the  expression  of  a  disem- 
bodied spirit.  But  when  his  incorrigible  thirst  has 
once  more  mastered  him,  he  assumes  the  domineer- 
ing manner  of  an  immortal  and  orders  Nille  to  run 
and  fetch  him  a  crown's  worth  of  brandy.  Jeppe 
cannot  be  convinced  that  he  is  not  an  orthodox  mix- 
ture of  corpse  and  ghost,  until  he  is  doomed  back 
to  life  again  by  the  judge  who  convicted  him.  Then 
he  naturally  tries  to  maintain  that  his  ignominious 
experiences  have  been  heroic  adventures.  He  can- 
not hurry  to  his  friend  the  innkeeper  fast  enough. 
"Hat  under  your  arm!"  he  says  to  the  astonished 
Jacob."  Compared  with  such  a  man  as  I  am  now, 
you  are  but  a  poor  dog."  But  after  he  hears  the 
true  explanation  of  his  romantic  fortunes,  he  silently 
sneaks  out  of  the  inn,  back  to  the  vicious  circle  of 
the  life  with  which  we  have  become  perfectly  ac- 
quainted. 

Here  a  character,  apparently  the  creature  of  a 
time-worn  farcical  story,  is  made  to  represent  in 
vital  human  terms  the-results  of  a  debasing  social 
and  economic  system.  In  Jeppe  the  peasant  of  eigh- 
teenth-century Zealand  lives  immortally.  Conditions 
in  him  have  degraded,  but  not  crushed,  the  native    -- 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  83 

power  of  his  race.  Through  the  ignominy  of  Jeppe's 
life  we  catch  glimpses  of  an  inherent  shrewdness 
and  vigour  of  will  that  have  made  the  Danish  peas- 
ant so  vital  a  part  of  modern  Denmark.  Such  a  trans- 
formation of  a  mere  drunken  lout  of  the  Arabian 
Nights  could  have  been  accomplished  only  by  rare 
intuition  and  literary  skill. 

Evidently  Holberg's  best  domestic  comedies  of 
character  are  not  crude  farces,  nor  are  they  mere 
perfunctory  repetitions  of  a  conventional  method  of 
comic  construction.  Such  farcical  forms  are  con- 
ditions of  his  work  without  being  restrictions 
upon  its  essential  originality.  His  distinctive  comic 
power  results  from  his  ability  to  be  at  the  same  time 
buffoon,  critic,  and  philosopher. 

The  plays  of  the  second  class  —  simple  comedies 
of  character  —  are  in  structure  so  closely  similar  to 
the  plays  just  considered  that  they  need  no  detailed 
analysis.  They  differ  from  the  domestic  comedies 
only  in  the  absence  of  the  family  group.  This  lack 
produces  no  real  difference  in  the  author's  method, 
yet  it  makes  the  central  character  much  less  con- 
vincing. Without  the  striking  reality  which  the 
homely  bourgeois  family  establishes,  the  central  fig- 
ure seems  a  palpable  dramatic  fiction,  a  puppet 
invented  as  obviously  as  the  intrigue  which  dis- 
plays him. 


84  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

The  method  employed  in  the  plays  of  the  third 
class  —  the  comedies  of  intrigue  —  varies  necessarily 
with  the  nature  of  each  intrigue.  Yet  each  comedy 
is  usually  the  mere  presentation  of  a  series  of  tricks 
which  has  been  devised  by  a  roguish  servant  in 
the  interest  of  his  master,  for  the  sole  purpose  of 
fleecing  some  credulous  or  stupid  fool.  Touches  of 
characterization,  some  of  them  very  penetrating, 
may  be  given  by  the  way ;  but  the  main  dramatic 
purpose  of  these  plays  is  to  arouse  comparatively 
thoughtless  laughter  at  the  success  of  some  prac- 
tical joke.  The  Eleventh  of  June  is  a  fair  example 
of  this  class. 

The  first  act  of  the  comedy  shows  us  Skylden- 
borg  in  desperate  straits.  He  must  have  money  to 
pay  the  debts  which  will  fall  due  on  the  eleventh 
of  June,  the  end  of  the  fiscal  year.  He  tries  at  first 
to  get  it  by  daring,  but  unsuccessful,  schemes  for 
swindling  unwary  strangers.  His  servant  Henrich, 
as  a  last  resort,  forms  an  ingenious  plan.  A  young 
countryman  named  Studenstrup  is  expected  in  town 
to  collect  a  debt  from  Skyldenborg.  Henrich,  in  col- 
lusion with  his  master,  pretends  to  be  the  boy's 
cousin,  and,  while  appearing  to  ofler  him  hospital- 
ity, takes  him  to  a  house  of  doubtful  reputation, 
where,  with  the  help  of  the  proprietor,  he  intends 
to  rob  him  thoroughly.  Henrich  easily  gets  Studen- 
strup into  his  clutches,  and  for  the  last  four  acts  of 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  85 

the  play  makes  him  the  victim  of  a  series  of  clev- 
erly executed  tricks.  In  the  end,  the  farmer's  boy, 
robbed  of  everything  by  the  adroit  and  plausible 
Henrich,  is  sent  home  no  whit  the  wiser.  Henrich's 
delight  as  he  divides  his  spoils  with  the  innkeeper 
is  supposed  to  be  shared  by  the  audience,  for  it  is 
in  the  success  of  the  tricks  that  it  must  find  its 
incentive  to  laughter.  Such  a  comedy  reveals  a  less 
cultivated  skill  in  dramatic  construction  and  a  less 
keen  sense  for  the  comic  in  life  than  Holberg  shows 
in  his  comedies  of  character. 

Each  of  the  comedies  of  the  fourth  class  is  so  in- 
dividual that  no  general  exposition  of  the  author's 
method  can  be  given.  Foolish  beliefs,  as  well  as 
absurd  social  customs,  are  ridiculed.  Melampe  is  a 
satire  on  excessive  and  ostentatious  aifection  for  lap- 
dogs.  Ulysses  von  Ithacia  is  a  parody  of  the  extrav- 
agant German  plays  presented  in  Copenhagen  in 
Holberg 's  day.  Witchcraft  is  a  satire  against  the 
belief  of  the  ignorant  folk  in  the  black  art.  Plutus^ 
like  Aristophanes 's  play  of  the  same  name,  to 
which  it  is  ultimately  related,  is  allegorical  ridicule 
of  the  abuses  of  wealth.  The  Republic^  another  al- 
legorical play,  sets  forth,  distinctly  in  the  manner 
of  a  moralist,  the  evils  brought  upon  a  state  by 
unpractical  and  importunate  project-makers.  And 
Sganarelle^  s  Joimiey  to  the  Philosophical  Land  is  a 
satire  on  insincere  professions  of  philosophy.  These 


86  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

plays,  the  last  three  of  which  are  inferior  products 
of  the  author's  old  age,  are  in  general  the  least 
successful  of  his  comedies.  Holberg  is  at  his  best 
when  depicting  comic  character. 

In  spite  of  the  originality  and  variety  in  Holberg's 
work,  his  dramatic  methods  are,  in  certain  respects 
at  least,  thoroughly  stereotyped.  For  almost  all  of 
his  compositions  he  had  one  or  two  definitely  con- 
ceived models.  The  necessity  of  his  adopting  some 
such  method  is  patent  when  we  recall  the  ex- 
traordinary rapidity  with  which  he  wrote.  In  1722, 
in  the  short  time  that  elapsed  between  the  projec- 
tion of  the  Danish  theatre  and  the  opening  of  the 
playhouse,  he  produced  five  of  his  best  plays  ;  and 
during  the  six  subsequent  years  in  which  Mon- 
taigu's  company  eked  out  its  fitful  and  precarious 
existence,  he  completed  twenty-six  comedies.  This 
productivity  seems  the  more  remarkable  when  we 
remember  that  he  had  practically  no  models  in  his 
own  language  which  he  could  follow.  All  the  drama 
produced  in  Denmark  before  him  bears  the  indeli- 
ble imprint  of  an  entirely  different  art.  The  come- 
dies, with  one  exception,  belonged  to  the  type  of  the 
so-called  "school  comedy,"  from  which  Holberg 
learned  nothing. 

This  one  exception  was  a  play  called  The  Com- 
edy of  the  Count  and  the  Baron*  written  by  a  cer- 
tain Mogens  Skeel  about  the  year  1678.  It  not  only 


HOLBERG'S  PLAYS  87 

differentiates  itself  sharply  from  school  comedy,  but 
shows  certain  points  of  resemblance  with  Holberg's 
work.  It  is  a  satire  on  the  newly  created  nobles  of 
the  time  of  Christian  V.  Their  silly  assumption  of 
superiority  and  their  desperate  attempts  to  learn  the 
customs  and  graces  suitable  to  their  rank  are  effec- 
tively ridiculed.  The  folly  of  the  count  and  countess 
in  the  play  shows  itself  most  clearly  in  their  deter- 
mination to  have  their  daughter  marry  a  rich  but 
rascally  baron.  The  girl  is  saved  from  him  and 
enabled  to  marry  her  lover  by  means  of  a  plot  de- 
vised by  the  countess's  maid  and  executed  with 
the  friendly  help  of  the  count's  manservant.  These 
features  of  construction  are  found  in  but  slightly 
different  form  in  Holberg's  plays.  Yet  they  are  al- 
most the  distinguishing  marks  of  Renaissance  com- 
edy, and  Holberg  learned  to  apply  them  by  studying 
them  in  forms  nearer  the  prototype,  that  is,  as  they 
appear  in  the  commedia  delV  arte.  He  must,  how- 
ever, have  known  Skeel's  comedy,  and  may  have 
received  certain  definite  dramatic  suggestions  from 
reading  it.*  The  existence  of  The  Comedy  of  the 
Count  and  the  Baron  is  important  because  it  proves 
that  Holberg  did  not  introduce  ideas  of  art  entirely 
foreign  to  Denmark.  Neither  was  he  the  first  to  see 
the  comic  significance  of  contemporary  Danish  life. 
His  work,  in  a  broad  sense,  must  be  regarded  as 
a  continuation  and,  in  a  measure,  a  completion  of 


88  HOLBERG'S  PLAYS 

efforts  characteristic  of  the  more  enlightened  part 
of  his  nation  before  his  day. 

Although  Holberg,  then,  cannot  be  wholly  de- 
tached from  the  intellectual  movements  of  his  own 
country,  he  certainly  drew  his  inspiration  largely 
from  abroad.  Most  of  his  dramatic  models,  as  well 
as  his  sources  of  literary  inspiration  and  suggestion, 
must  be  sought  in  literature  other  than  Danish. 
A  single  definite  purpose  unifies  all  of  his  work. 
His  treatises  on  international  law,  histories,  essays, 
satires,  and  comedies  are  but  diverse  expressions  of 
one  absorbing  intention.  He  wished  above  all  else  to 
be  the  bearer  of  the  intellectual  light  of  eighteenth- 
century  Europe  to  backward  Denmark.  To  the 
Danes,  therefore,  the  significance  even  of  Holberg 's 
comedies  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  called  attention, 
by  contrast,  to  the  social  conditions  of  other  and 
more  progressive  nations  in  western  Europe. 


HOLBERG    AND    MOLIERE 


CHAPTER    III 

HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 
I 

OF  all  the  foreign  influences  to  which  Holberg 
was  subjected,  that  of  French  comedy  was 
naturally  the  most  extensive  and  persistent.  Every 
playwright  of  the  eighteenth  century  inevitably  felt 
the  widely  diffused  influence  of  French  drama,  and 
Holberg,  for  special  reasons,  felt  it  with  peculiar 
directness.  As  early  as  1681,  King  Christian  V  had 
commissioned  Meier  Krone,  the  Danish  ambassador 
in  Paris,  to  engage  a  company  of  French  comedians 
to  play  in  Copenhagen.  From  that  time  until  1720, 
when  Montaigu's  company  was  dissolved,  French 
plays  were  continually  presented  at  the  Danish 
court. The  intelligent  part  of  the  Danish  public  nat- 
urally derived  its  dramatic  taste  from  French  com- 
edies and  from  them  alone.  Montaigu,  moreover, 
the  director  of  the  company  for  which  Holberg  wrote 
almost  all  his  plays,  was  a  Frenchman.  To  meet  his 
views,  a  comedy  must  needs  be  similar  to  those  in 
which  he  had  been  trained.  His  judgements  of  Hol- 
berg's  plays  were  further  limited  by  his  imper- 
fect knowledge  of  Danish.  Before  he  could  give  his 
opinion  of  them,  they  had  to  be  translated  into 
French.  In  writing  for  the  approval  of  such  a  di- 


92  HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

rector,  and  for  a  public  accustomed  to  French  com- 
edies only,  Holberg  naturally  adopted  the  one  comic 
idiom  which  they  understood. 

Many  passages  in  Holberg 's  autobiographical 
writings  show  that  his  own  taste  in  comedy  was 
not  unlike  that  of  his  public.  He  expresses  openly 
his  admiration  for  French  literature,  and  realizes  his 
debt  to  it  with  apparent  satisfaction.  "Paris,"  he 
avers, "is  the  true  home  of  literature.  There  is  no 
other  place  in  the  world  where  one  can  make  such 
rapid  progress  in  literary  studies  or  where  one  can 
acquire  so  correct  a  taste  for  literature.  I  must  con- 
fess that  I  have  to  thank  French  books  for  every- 
thing that  I  know." 

In  the  light  of  this  statement,  Holberg' s  repeat- 
edly declared  admiration  for  Moliere  is  to  be  ex- 
pected ;  but  his  comparative  scorn  for  other  French 
writers  of  comedy,  and  his  manifest  contempt  for 
some  of  Moliere' s  successors,  notably  Destouches 
and  Legrand,  are  surprising.  He  says,  for  example : 
"The  comedies  which  have  been  produced  since 
the  time  of  Moliere  are  for  the  most  part  tedious, 
insipid,  and  of  such  a  nature  that  only  a  depraved 
taste,  like  that  of  Frenchmen  of  to-day,  could  take 
delight  in  them."  Holberg  found  Moliere's  com- 
edies his  greatest  French  source  of  inspiration.  He 
even  implies,  at  least  once,  that  he  regarded  his  imi- 
tation of  them  as  manifest.  In  criticising  the  taste 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE  93 

of  the  Danish  public  in  1746,  he  remarks:  "Both 
Moliere  and  the  authors  of  our  own  native  plays 
modelled  upon  his  work  have  been  dethroned,  while 
Destouches  and  other  authors  of  the  same  miser- 
able sort  have  been  set  up  in  their  places."  By  "our 
original  plays"  Holberg  could  have  meant  only 
his  own  ;  no  others  existed.  This  definite  assertion, 
added  to  the  obvious  reasons  for  the  predominance  of 
Moliere '  s  influence  upon  the  incipient  Danish  drama , 
compels  one  to  appraise  all  possible  phases  of  his 
influence  upon  Holberg,  before  one  can  speak  with 
plausibility  of  Holberg's  relation  to  any  other  foreign 
literature. 

From  Moliere  Holberg  evidently  borrowed  stock 
comic  figures,  methods  of  expounding  and  grouping 
character,  more  than  one  plot,  and  even  innumer- 
able bits  of  comic  detail.  Yet  these  things  are  the  form 
and  not  the  content  of  the  comic  speech  of  both  dram- 
atists. Holberg  made  systematic  attempts  to  learn 
Moliere's  dramatic  language,  only  that  he  might 
employ  it  for  the  expression  of  his  own  native  hu- 
mour. His  comic  spirit  remained  unaffected  by  for- 
eign literary  forms.  In  the  first  part  of  this  chapter, 
therefore,  we  shall  review  the  many  lessons  of  tech- 
nique that  Holberg  learned  from  Moliere,  utilizing 
freely  in  the  comparison  Legrelle's  excellent  book, 
Holberg  considere  comme  imitateur  de  Moliere.  After- 
wards it  will  be  shown  how   the  Danish  author 


94  HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

invariably  contrived  to  make  these  borrowed  forms 
express  his  own  individual  spirit. 

Although  Moliere's  technique  aided  Holberg  in 
the  construction  of  all  four  types  of  his  plays,  it 
helped  him  most  in  the  composition  of  his  domestic 
comedies  of  character.  Indeed,  comedy  of  this  sort, 
regarded  as  a  distinct  genre^  may  be  said  to  have 
been  invented  by  Moliere.  Tartuffe  and  all  the  better 
plays  which  followed  it —  George  Dandin^  Li'  Avare^ 
Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme^  Les  Femmes  Savantes, 
and  Le  Malade  Lmaginaire — have  the  distinguish- 
ing characteristics  of  the  type.  The  elements  had, 
of  course,  existed  separately  much  earlier.  French 
farce  for  at  least  a  century  before  Moliere  had  been 
obviously  a  kind  of  domestic  comedy.  It  had  been, 
however,  comedy  of  situation  and  burlesque  inci- 
dent. Classical  comedy,  on  the  other  hand,  and  that 
written  after  the  classical  tradition,  had  often  been 
comedy  of  character.  But  the  character  ridiculed 
had  never  been  set  in  a  definite  domestic  milieu. 
The  difference  between  this  drama  and  Moliere's 
distinctive  work  can  best  be  demonstrated  by  a 
comparison  of  L^Avare  with  its  obvious  source, 
Aulalaria. 

In  the  Latin  play,  Euclio's  cupidity  results  in 
nothing  but  mockery  from  the  persons  about  him ; 
in  L\4vare^  Harpagon  is  a  miserly  father,  whose  ava- 
rice disintegrates  his  family.  Euclio's  suspicion  of 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE  95 

Megadorus's  motives  in  wishing  to  wed  his  daugh- 
ter are  merely  ridiculous ;  Harpagon's  determination 
to  force  Elise  to  marry  Anselme,  so  that  he  can  keep 
her  dowry  for  himself,  is  domestic  tyranny.  The 
French  miser,  moreover,  insists  that  his  son  marry 
an  heiress  instead  of  his  beloved  Mariane.  This  ar- 
bitrary demand,  combined  with  the  miser's  greed, 
leads  Cleante  first  to  a  discovery  of  Harpagon's  con- 
temptible usury  and  then  to  practical  confederacy 
with  the  robber  LaFlecheagainst  his  father.  In  every 
case,  therefore,  what  is  in  Euclio  mean  personal  pas- 
sion, in  Harpagon  has  become  a  source  of  general 
domestic  disorder.  Euclio  is,  as  it  were,  an  isolated 
comic  figure;  Harpagon  is  a  comic  member  of  a 
bourgeois  family. 

All  of  Moliere's  domestic  comedies  of  character 
are  like  UAvare  in  this  respect,  —  the  amusement 
depends  on  the  way  in  which  the  foible  of  the  central 
character  implicates  the  members  of  his  own  house- 
hold. A  writer  of  such  comedies  has  two  distinct 
problems :  first,  the  construction  of  the  family  group  ; 
and  second,  the  introduction,  the  display,  and  final 
disposition  of  the  main  character.  In  solving  both  of 
these  problems,  Holberg  followed  Moliere's  method, 
even  in  details. 

The  most  important  unifying  figure  in  Moliere's 
group  is  the  mother.  In  the  few  pictures  that  he 
draws  of  a  complete  bourgeois  family,  the  mother, 


96  HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

worldly-wise  and  utterly  unidealistic,  is  the  ruler. 
She  asserts  and  obtains  her  wishes  as  against  those 
of  her  husband  in  all  things  which  concern  the  or- 
ganization and  conduct  of  the  household,  and  par- 
ticularly in  all  things  which  concern  her  daughter's 
marriage.  In  George  Dandin^  it  is  Madame  de  Soten- 
ville  who  determines  the  character  of  the  tyranny  to 
which  her  wretched  son-in-law  is  subjected.  In  Le 
Bourgeois  Gentilhomme^  Madame  Jourdain  is  a  bet- 
ter embodiment  of  Moliere's  bourgeois  mother.  She 
represents  obstinate  common  sense  in  the  face  of  her 
husband's  absurd  social  pretensions  and  affectations. 
Though  without  influence  in  curbing  M.  Jourdain's 
ambition,  she  is  thoroughly  effectual  in  defeating  his 
plans  for  marrying  their  daughter.  She  opposes  him 
with  shrewish  fury  until  she  is  made  a  party  to  the 
deception  which  passes  off  the  girl's  lover  upon 
M.  Jourdain  as  the  son  of  the  Grand  Turk. 

Though  both  Madame  de  Sotenville  and  Madame 
Jourdain  are  hard-headed,  efficient  domestic  tyrants, 
they  do  not  play  their  parts  so  vigorously  as  the 
women  in  Les  Femmes  Savantes^  where  Philaminte, 
the  wife  of  Chrysale,  forms,  with  her  sister-in-law, 
Belise,  and  her  older  daughter,  Armande,  a  femi- 
nine triumvirate,  which  rules  the  family  with  an 
iron  hand.  To  this  tyranny  Chrysale  in  particular 
has  to  submit.  He  is  not  only  powerless  to  prevent 
the  arbitrary  dismissal  of  poor  Martine,  but  he  is 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE  97 

equally  ineffectual  in  opposing  Philaminte's  plans 
for  marrying  Henriette  to  the  insufferable  pedant, 
Trissotin.  Her  preposterous  scheme  is  thwarted  only 
because  Chrysale's  brother,  Ariste,  devises  a  trick 
by  which  Trissotin  is  shown  to  be  a  fraud. 

Thus  the  mothers  clearly  rule  the  household. 
Their  assertions  of  authority  are  by  no  means  mere 
bursts  of  temper.  They  are  rather  attempts,  though 
often  irascible  and  shrewish,  to  establish  a  definite 
domestic  policy.  The  humour  of  the  relation  between 
husband  and  wife  in  these  groups  is  founded  on 
a  clear  conception  of  a  family  organization. 

Holberg's  Magdelone  is  a  middle-class  mother 
holding  the  same  ideas  as  these  women  of  Moliere. 
In  Pemille' s  Short  Expeneiwe  as  a  Lady^  Magde- 
lone's  assertion  of  her  power  is  thoroughly  character- 
istic. She  and  her  husband,  Leonard,  have  a  young 
daughter,  who  is  sought  in  marriage  by  a  rich  old 
man,  Jeronimus.  Both  parents  offer  the  natural  ob- 
jection to  the  suitor's  age  until  the  old  fellow  replies 
as  follows  : 

Jeronimus.  After  all,  the  match  is  not  so  very  unequal.  In  the 
first  place,  I  am  not  so  old  as  I  may  seem ;  and  in  the  sec- 
ond place,  since  Heaven  has  granted  me  ample  means, — 
sixty  thousand  dollars  in  ready  money  — 

Magdelone.  Sixty  thousand  dollars,  you  say  ? 

Jeronimus.  Yes,  sixty  thousand  dollars. 

Magdelone.  And  in  ready  money  ? 


98  HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

Jeronimiis.  Yes,  in  ready  money.  Does  the  match  now  seem  so 

very  indecent  ? 
Magdelone.  I  thought  that  Mr.  Jeronimus  was  a  very  old  man, 

but  now  that  I  hear  that  he  is  n't  nearly  so  old  as  I  tliought, 

I  really  can't  see  that  there  is  any  great  disparity  — 
Leonard.  He  is  too  old  for  her,  all  the  same. 
Magdelone.  Keep  still,  my  dear !  You  are  always  interrupting. 

Let  me  talk.  Since  Mr.  Jeronimus  isn't  so  very  old,  and  it  is 

Heaven's  Avill,  we  simply  can't  refuse  his  request. 
Leonard.   But  we  surely  can't  promise  our  daughter  until  we 

have  heard  her  opinion. 
Magdelone.  You  are  a  regular  old  woman,  my  dear.  Let  me 

talk.  See,  here  is  my  hand,  Jeronimus,  as  a  pledge  that  you 

shall  have  my  daughter. 

Such  a  woman  is  the  same  unscrupulous  tyrant 
that  we  have  seen  the  bourgeois  mothers  in  Mo- 
liere's  plays  to  be.  In  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck., 
Magdelone  is  similarly  assertive.  She  has  been  flat- 
tered by  the  pedantic  poet,  Rosiflengius,  until  she 
determines  that  no  one  else  shall  be  her  son-in- 
law.  Her  plan  for  the  marriage  of  her  stepdaughter 
becomes,  it  is  needless  to  say,  the  plan  of  Jero- 
nimus too.  In  Jean  de  France.,  Magdelone  does  not 
show  her  customary  worldly  common  sense.  She  is 
completely  captivated  by  the  Frenchified  airs  of 
her  foppish  son,  while  her  husband  immediately 
sees  how  intensely  foolish  they  are.  Yet  she  compels 
him,  unwilling  though  he  is,  to  simulate  her  adoring 
attitude.  These  women,  in  spite  of  much  personal 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE  99 

individuality,  play  parts  clearly  similar  to  that  ha- 
bitually taken  by  the  mother  in  Moliere's  domestic 
comedies  of  character. 

The  bourgeois  father  in  Moliere,  in  one  respect 
at  least,  is  the  distinct  prototype  of  Holberg's  sim- 
ilar figure.  To  be  sure,  the  father  in  the  French 
comedies  is  frequently  the  central  comic  figure.  As 
such  he  can  obviously  retain  no  fixed  conventional 
nature.  Yet,  like  practically  all  fathers  in  Renais- 
sance comedy,  the  middle-class  father  in  Moliere, 
whatever  his  importance,  always  insists  that  his 
daughter  give  up  her  lover  for  the  man  of  his  choice. 
Moliere  is  original  only  in  making  the  customary 
opposition  of  the  father  illustrate  the  parent's  char- 
acteristic foible.  In  UAvare^  for  example,  the  miser 
Harpagon  wishes  Elise  to  marry  Seigneur  Anselme 
merely  because  he  is  willing  to  take  her  ' '  sans  dot. ' ' 
And  the  neurotic  Argan  insists  on  having  Thomas 
Diafoirus  for  his  son-in-law,  so  that  he  may  con- 
stantly have  on  hand  ' '  les  sources  des  remedes  qui 
me  sont  necessaires." 

Holberg  is  like  Moliere  in  making  a  tiresome 
convention  of  parental  tyranny  serve  the  needs  of 
his  comedy  of  character.  In  The  Political  Tinker^ 
for  example,  Hermann,  the  pot-house  ]X)litician, 
objects  to  his  daughter's  lover  because  he  refuses 
to  become  a  "politicus."Vielgeschrey,  who  imag- 
ines that  the  duties  involved  in  running  his  house- 


100         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

hold  force  him  into  a  headlong  rush,  insists  on  his 
daughter's  marrying  a  bookkeeper,  Peder  Mad- 
sen.  Only  an  expert,  he  thinks,  will  be  able  to  bal- 
ance his  household  accounts.  And  Don  Ranudo,  the 
ragged  but  ferociously  proud  Spanish  grandee,  will 
allow  his  daughter  to  marry  no  one  of  less  impor- 
tance than  the  Prince  of  Ethiopia,  a  lineal  descend- 
ant of  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  Holberg  follows  Moliere, 
therefore,  in  transforming  an  irrational  convention 
of  Renaissance  comedy  into  an  element  of  strength 
in  the  construction  of  a  new  form  of  comedy  of 
character. 

In  the  plays  of  both  Moliere  and  Holberg,  there 
is  a  figure  belonging  to  the  family  whose  main 
dramatic  duty  is  to  act  as  an  exponent  of  common 
sense.  His  voice  alone  is  that  of  disinterested  rea- 
son. Of  this  figure  as  it  appears  in  Moliere,  Legrelle 
says  :  "  L'une  des  plus  singulieres  conventions  que 
la  comedie  de  Moliere  impose  a  la  bonne  volonte 
du  spectateur,  c'est  assurement  celle  d'unfrere  ou 
d'un  beau-frere,  I'homme  raisonnable  de  la  piece, 
et  le  met  dans  I'obligation  d'user  a  un  certain  mo- 
ment de  cette  sorte  d'infaillibilite  qui  lui  est  attribuee 
pour  remettre  un  peu  dans  la  voie  du  bon  sens  les 
esprits  passionnes  ou  aveugles,  c'est  a  dire  a  peu 
pres  tout  le  monde." 

One  has  but  to  think  of  the  part  that  Ariste 
plays  in  Les  Femmes  Savantes  to  realize  to  what 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         101 

the  critic  is  here  referring.  A  brother  of  the  poor 
crushed  Chrysale,  he  sees  clearly  enough  the  true 
nature  of  Trissotin,  and  devises  the  plot  by  which 
the  fawning  flatterer  is  made  to  reveal  his  real 
character  even  to  the  three  learned  ladies.  In  Le 
Malade  Imaginaire^  Beralde,  the  brother  of  the  ail- 
ing Argan,  is  a  similar  embodiment  of  common 
sense.  He  really  directs  the  action  but  little,  yet 
he  is  constantly  protesting  in  the  name  of  reason 
against  Argan 's  illusions.  Such  a  mouthpiece  of 
common  sense  was  not  the  invention  of  Moliere. 
A  similar  personage  appears  even  in  the  comedies 
of  Plautus  and  Terence,  where  he  is  usually  an  old 
neighbour  who  now  and  then  looks  over  the  wall  to 
talk  a  bit  of  sense  to  the  obsessed  characters.  Mo- 
liere's  originality  consists  almost  wholly  in  giving 
the  figure  a  definite  place  in  the  life  of  a  middle- 
class  family. 

A  common-sense  brother,  evidently  modelled  on 
Moliere's  figure,  often  appears  in  Holberg's  plays. 
He  is  rarely,  however,  a  person  of  importance  to 
the  plot ;  he  is  rather  a  mere  foil  to  set  off  the  fool, 
or  a  standard  by  which  the  folly  of  the  other  persons 
may  be  measured.  Ovidius,  for  example,  in  With- 
out Head  or  Tail^  plays  the  part  that  Holberg  usu- 
ally assigned  to  this  figure.  The  comedy  is  a  satire 
on  extremes  in  religious  belief.  Of  three  brothers, 
one,  Roland,  is  violently  superstitious ;  another,  Le- 


102         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

ander,  is  obstinately  skeptical ;  while  Ovidius,  the 
third,  takes  a  sane  middle  course.  A  demonstration 
which  a  charlatan  old  witch  gives  of  her  power 
changes  completely  the  position  of  the  two  extre- 
mists. Roland  sees  that  the  old  woman  is  an  im- 
postor. The  miraculous  bases  of  his  faith  are,  there- 
fore, swept  away,  and  he  becomes  straightway  a 
complete  skeptic.  The  incredulous  Leander,  seeing 
by  chance  the  same  demonstration,  is  terrified  by 
the  display  of  what  seems  to  him  supernatural 
power  and  immediately  accepts  devoutly  all  the  su- 
perstition that  Roland  has  just  forsaken.  Ovidius, 
in  the  mean  time,  has  remained  firm  in  his  reasoned 
belief.  "I  consider  it  just  as  silly,"  he  says,  "to 
reject  every  sort  of  belief  as  to  accept  them  all.  I 
always  take  the  middle  course  between  skepticism 
and  superstition."  To  the  pedestrian  sanity  of  this 
compromise  he  ultimately  converts  both  of  his  er- 
ratic brothers.  Ovidius,  then,  is  not  only  the  stand- 
ard by  which  the  folly  of  his  brothers  is  measured, 
but  also  the  embodiment  of  the  common  sense  which 
in  the  end  prevails  over  their  folly. 

This  Ovidius,  besides,  obviously  expresses  Hol- 
berg's  own  ideas  on  the  subject  treated  in  the  play. 
In  so  far  as  he  is  merely  the  author's  voice  and  es- 
sentially unrelated  to  the  other  characters  through 
the  action,  he  is  an  unsuccessful  dramatic  figure. 
Elsewhere  a  similar  character  is  nothing   but  a  - 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         103 

critic  of  the  comic  extremes  embodied  in  the  other 
persons  in  the  comedy.  His  lectures,  then,  have  so 
Httle  relation  to  the  plot  that  they  often  seem  mere 
incidental  essays  on  manners.  Originally,  Holberg's 
common-sense  figure  was  probably  a  copy  of  the 
similar  one  in  Moliere.  Usually,  both  are  definitely 
related  to  the  family  in  which  the  dramatic  action 
takes  place ;  both  serve  as  standards  by  which  to 
measure  the  folly  of  the  ridiculous  characters;  and 
both  act,  as  it  were,  as  intellectual  solvents  for  all 
the  folly  that  appears  in  the  drama.  Holberg,  how- 
ever, by  failing  to  give  this  oracle  of  common  sense 
a  definite  relation  to  the  other  characters  through 
the  action,  makes  him  seem  too  often  merely  a 
spokesman  for  the  author's  ideas. 

Other  members  of  the  typical  family  in  Holberg's 
plays,  especially  the  two  lovers  and  the  two  ubiqui- 
tous intriguing  servants,  seem  more  directly  related 
to  figures  of  a  like  sort  in  the  commedia  delVarte 
than  to  any  in  Moliere.  Yet  the  most  important 
structural  members  of  the  household  are  alike  in 
the  comedies  of  the  two  writers.  In  the  works  of 
both  there  appear  the  worldly-wise  mother,  who  is 
clearly  the  ruler  of  her  husband ;  the  father,  who, 
although  cowed  by  his  wife,  is  stubbornly  opposed 
to  his  daughter's  marrying  anyone  who  will  not 
indulge  his  characteristic  foible;  a  rather  artificial 
man  of  common  sense,  a  brother-in-law  or  some 


104         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

equally  convenient  relative ;  and  finally,  of  course, 
the  chief  humorous  figure.  The  entire  family  really 
exists  only  to  serve  as  a  realistic  background  for  him 
and  to  keep  him  continually  the  centre  of  comic 
interest. 

Another  set  of  problems,  therefore,  to  be  solved 
by  an  author  in  writing  a  domestic  comedy  of  char- 
acter concerns  this  principal  comic  figure.  And  in 
the  introduction,  display,  and  disposition  of  this 
all-important  personage,  the  two  authors  adopt  sim- 
ilar methods.  The  entrance  of  the  comic  hero  in  the 
plays  of  both  Moliere  and  Holberg  is  usually  post- 
poned until  his  nature  has  been  vividly  described  by 
the  family  of  which  he  is  a  member.  In  Tartuffe, 
the  hypocrite  (in  this  case  a  member  of  the  household 
only  by  adoption)  does  not  appear  until  the  beginning 
of  the  third  act.  For  two  acts,  however,  the  various 
members  of  Orgon's  family  have  been  talking  of 
little  but  him.  Tartuffe's  smug  hypocrisy,  when  at 
length  it  is  displayed,  is  funny,  therefore,  not  only 
in  itself,  but  also  because  of  the  satisfaction  it  affords 
to  a  deliberately  aroused  comic  curiosity.  The  plot 
of  Erasmus  Montanus  is  in  this  respect  typical  of 
Holberg's  method.  The  advent  of  Erasmus,  too, 
has  been  artfully  prepared  for  by  his  family.  Dur- 
ing the  first  act  all  the  characters  talk  of  nothing 
but  the  antecedents  and  the  peculiarities  of  the 
young  pedant,  so  that  at  the  moment  of  his  first 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         105 

appearance,  in  absent-minded  disarray,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  second  act,  the  audience  is  quite 
ready  to  laugh  at  him.  His  actions  need  to  be  merely 
suggestive  and  not  definitely  illustrative.  This  skil- 
ful and  economical  method  of  seizing  the  attention 
of  the  audience  for  one  comic  figure,  and  of  hold- 
ing it  rivetted  there  with  the  least  expenditure  of 
dramatic  invention,  Holberg  clearly  learned  from 
Moliere. 

The  second  period  in  the  comic  existence  of  the 
central  character  is  alike  in  both  authors.  The  hero 
must,  of  course,  display  the  character  which  his 
family  has  already  assigned  to  him.  For  the  first  ex- 
hibition of  his  nature  he  need  not  be  involved  in  an 
artfully  contrived  situation.  But  both  authors  find  it 
necessary  to  devise  a  plot  which  will  ensnare  him 
and  make  him  irrevocably  the  dupe  of  his  foible.  In 
Tartuffe^  Elmire  gives  the  unctuous  impostor  an  op- 
portunity to  make  love  to  her  after  she  has  concealed 
her  husband  in  the  room.  In  this  way  TartufFe's 
elaborate  pose  is  betrayed,  and  thereafter  he  is  the 
victim  of  his  own  hypocrisy.  In  Erasmus  Montaniis^ 
the  recruiting  sergeant  traps  the  pedant  by  appealing 
to  his  love  of  disputation.  When  the  boy  sees  into 
what  difficulty  his  affected  scholarship  has  brought 
him,  he  is  ready  to  acknowledge  it  as  folly  and  to 
renounce  it  forever.  Tartuffe  does  not  thus  reform. 
His  hypocrisy  is  too  clearly  a  moral  fault  to  be  sum- 


106         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

marily  cast  off  like  Erasmus's  stupid  monomania. 
Moliere's  comic  heroes  are  as  a  rule  possessed  by 
a  mania  too  serious  to  be  renounced  by  a  fifth-act 
repentance.  The  French  author,  moreover,  enjoyed 
ending  his  plays  with  a  sardonic  burst  of  laughter 
at  the  silly  victim  of  the  folly.  Such  cynical  mirth 
Holberg  found  uncomfortable.  He  preferred  to  leave 
his  comic  heroes  completely  reformed  and  happily 
reconciled  with  their  families.  He  was  willing  to 
blunt  the  edge  of  his  ridicule  for  the  sake  of  making 
more  pointed  his  moral  intention. 

Neither  the  subject  nor  the  method  of  any  of  Hol- 
berg's  comedies  of  manners  is  borrowed  from  Mo- 
liere.  Yet  some  incidental  social  satire  which  appears 
in  Holberg  has  a  counterpart  in  the  work  of  his 
French  master.  Though  Moliere's  tiresome  inveigh- 
ing against  the  medical  profession  is  echoed  in  Hol- 
berg, the  Danish  writer  is  much  less  fond  of  this  sort 
of  fun.  While  Moliere  chooses  ridicule  of  doctors  for 
the  central  idea  of  three  of  his  comedies,  Holberg 
makes  the  doctor  the  main  object  of  his  satire  in  no 
one  of  his  plays.  He  says,  indeed,  with  how  much 
seriousness  one  cannot  tell :  ' '  All  doctor  comedies 
are  nonsensical  here  at  home,  where  the  medical 
profession  is  composed  of  excellent  men.  They  are 
in  no  way  guilty  of  those  faults  found  among  the 
itinerant  doctors  abroad . "  In  spite  of  this  apparently 
ingenuous  praise,  Holberg  does  introduce  into  his 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         107 

comedies  now  and  then  bits  of  the  current,  popular 
satire  on  the  profession.  In  The  Lying-in  Chamber^ 
for  example,  among  the  guests  who  come  to  con- 
gratulate the  young  mother  into  a  state  of  collapse 
is  her  learned  physician.  His  pedantic  use  of  Latin, 
which  the  patient  amusingly  misunderstands,  and 
his  still  more  pedantic  citation  of  authorities  are  the 
objects  of  Holberg's  ridicule. 

The  Young  Mother.  I  have  such  horrible  dreams  at  night. 
What  can  cause  such  things.  Doctor? 

The  Doctor.  Dreams,  Madam,  are  of  various  sorts;  there  are 
somnia  divina,  diabolica,  and  nafiiralio,  or  accoixiing  to  the 
opinion  of  Hippocrates,  only  somnia  divina  and  naturalia. 

On  other  occasions,  when  Holberg  has  Henrich  dis- 
guise himself  as  a  doctor,  the  rogue  assumes  that  the 
only  things  necessary  are  a  long  black  robe,  equally 
long  excursions  into  Latin,  and  an  eagerness  to  dis- 
agree violently  with  his  colleagues  in  every  diagno- 
sis. Such  incidental  bits  of  satire  show  Holberg's  ac- 
quiescence in  an  almost  universal  comic  tradition, 
rather  than  any  definite  indebtedness  to  Moliere  for 
his  conception  of  effective  satire  on  manners. The  re- 
lation of  the  two  authors  in  this  ridicule  of  doctors  is 
typical.  When  Holberg  borrows  some  of  Moliere's 
satire  on  social  customs  he  reduces  it  to  the  posi- 
tion of  an  insignificant  comic  device.* 

The  plot  of  one  of  Holberg's  comedies  of  intrigue, 
The  Eleventh  of  June.,  is  derived  in  all  its  essen- 


108         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

tials  directly  from  Monsieur  de  Pourceaiignac.  *  Parts 
of  the  plots  of  some  of  his  plays  which  are  not  prop- 
erly called  comedies  of  intrigue  are  also  derived 
from  plays  of  Moliere.  Some  of  the  dramatic  ac- 
tion oi Honourable  Ambition  and  Z)o«  Ranudois  taken 
from  that  of  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme^  and  the 
plot  of  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck  is  much  like  that 
of  Les  Femmes  Savantes.  In  these  works,  however, 
Holberg's  art  is  revealed,  not  in  that  dramatic  ac- 
tion which  is  obvious  imitation,  but,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  in  the  skilful  way  in  which  he  has 
adapted  Moliere' s  action  to  his  immediate  dramatic 
purpose,  and  at  the  same  time  transformed  French 
artifice  into  Danish  reality. 

Besides  these  lessons  of  structure  which  Hol- 
berg  clearly  learned  from  Moliere,  he  found  much 
of  what  may  be  called  his  comic  decoration  in  the 
work  of  his  French  master.  In  all  comedy  there 
must  be  many  moments  the  humour  of  which  de- 
pends, not  upon  their  relation  to  the  dramatic  pur- 
pose of  the  whole  play,  but  solely  upon  their  own 
extraordinary  and  unexpected  nature.  They  are  de- 
vices for  keeping  the  audience  amused  by  the  way, 
while  the  humour  of  a  situation  or  of  a  character  is 
being  systematically  yet  gradually  presented.  Com- 
edy of  this  sort  Holberg  borrowed  freely  from  Mo- 
liere. Exhaustive  lists  of  such  similarities  between 
the  two  men  have  been  compiled. f  From  them  we 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         109 

need  choose  only  enough  to  show  the  extent  and 
general  nature  of  this  borrowing  of  detail. 

Holberg  is  sometimes  systematic  in  his  use  of 
Moliere's  comic  devices.  In  The  Busy  Man,  for  ex- 
ample, he  uses  one  bit  of  incidental  comedy  after 
another  in  the  same  order  in  which  these  same 
devices  appear  in  Le  Malade  Imaginaire.  This 
steady  correspondence  in  comic  decoration  makes 
the  two  plays  seem  strangely  alike.  Yet  both  in  the 
characters  satirized  and  in  the  plots  which  motivate 
the  action,  they  are  completely  unlike.  Moliere's 
play  satirizes  in  Argan  a  man  engrossed  by  his  im- 
aginary infirmities,  and  intent  on  applying  every 
conceivable  remedy  to  their  cure.  Holberg' s  play 
satirizes  in  Vielgeschrey  one  with  nothing  at  all  to 
do,  who,  nevertheless,  believes  himself  overwhelmed 
with  work.  Two  characters  so  unlike  are  naturally 
cured  of  their  foibles  through  the  operation  of  en- 
tirely different  plots.  There  is,  however,  enough 
similarity  in  the  march  of  the  incidents  to  allow 
Holberg  at  frequent  intervals  to  adapt  a  comic  device 
in  the  French  play  to  his  immediate  purpose. 

Argan 's  fondness  for  doctors  makes  him  insist 
that  his  daughter  give  up  her  lover  for  a  young 
physician,  Thomas  Diafoirus.  Vielgeschrey 's  ex- 
cited determination  to  bring  order  into  the  confu- 
sion of  his  household  accounts  makes  him  simi- 
larly reject  Leonora's  lover,  Leander,  in  favour  of  a 


110         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

bookkeeper,  Peder  Eriksen.  The  first  resemblance  in 
comic  device  appears  when  the  father  in  each  play 
announces  to  his  daughter  his  selection  of  her  hus- 
band. The  girl  in  each  case,  thinking  that  her  father 
is  surely  speaking  of  her  lover,  acquiesces  enthusi- 
astically in  all  his  praise  until  at  last  an  unequiv- 
ocal remark  brings  her  astonished  disillusionment. 
A  bit  of  the  dialogue  from  each  of  the  plays  will 
show  the  obvious  likeness. 

Argan.  lis  disent  que  c'est  un  grand  g^rgon  bien  fait. 
Angelique.  Oui,  mon  pere. 
Argan.  De  belle  taille. 
Angelique.  Sans  doute. 

Argan.  Et  qui  sera  reQU  medecin  dans  trois  jours. 

Angelique.  Lui,  mon  pere  ? 

Argan.  Oui.  Est-ce  qu'il  ne  te  I'a  pas  dit? 

Angelique.  Non,  vraiment.  Qui  vous  I'a  dit  a  vous  ? 

Argan.  Monsieur  Purgon. 

Angelique.  Est-ce  que  Monsieur  Purgon  le  connoit  ? 

Argan.  La  belle  demande !  il  faut  bien  qu'il  le  connoisse,  puis 

que  c'est  son  neveu. 
Angelique.  Cleante,  neveu  de  Monsieur  Purgon  ? 
Argan.  Quel  Cleante  ?  Nous  parlous  de  celui  pour  qui  I'on  t'a 

demandee  en  mariage. 
Angelique.  He !  oui. 
Argan.  He  bien,  c'est  le  neveu  de  Monsieur  Purgon  qui  est  le 

fills  de  son  beau-frere  le  medecin.  Monsieur  Diafoirus  et  ce 

fils  s'appelle  Thomas  Diafoirus,  et  non  pas  Cleante.* 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         111 

The  following  extract  from  The  Busy  Man  is 
clearly  modelled  on  this  dialogue.  Yet  Holberg  did 
not  have  the  power  of  holding  a  dramatic  fact  deli- 
cately in  suspense  through  a  long  stretch  of  swift 
dialogue,  a  power  peculiarly  French,  which  Hol- 
berg's  exact  contemporary,  Marivaux,  possessed  in 
the  degree  nearest  perfection.  The  Danish  author's 
imitation  of  this  device  lacks  much  of  the  charm 
of  the  original. 

Vielgeschrey .  He  is  a  sensible  young  person. 

Leonora.  Yes,  that  is  certainly  true. 

Vielgeschrey.  And  his  father  is  a  fine  man.  He  will  follow  in 

his  footsteps. 
Leonora.  I  have  no  doubt  of  that. 
Vielgeschrey .  And  within  four  years  he  will  be  the  cleverest 

bookkeeper  in  the  city. 
Leonora.  What  ?  Leander  a  bookkeeper  ? 
Vielgeschrey.  His  name  is  not  Leander ;  it  is  Peder,  and  he  is 

the  son  of  Erik  Madsen,  the  bookkeeper.* 

The  ridiculous  social  manners  of  Thomas  Diafoi- 
rus  are  much  like  those  of  the  approved  suitor  in 
the  Danish  play.  His  pedantic  grandiloquence  is 
undoubtedly  the  model  for  the  magnificent  speeches 
which  Leander  makes  when  he  is  passing  himself 
oiF as  Peder  Eriksen.  Diafoirus  begins  the  recitation 
of  the  remarks  he  has  painfully  learned  by  rote  as 
follows:  "Mademoiselle,  ne  plus  ne  moins  que  la 
statue  de  Memnon  rendoit  un  son  harmonieux  lors- 


112         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

qu'elle  venoit  a  etre  eclairee  des  rayons  du  soleil: 
tout  de  meme  me  sens-je  anime  d'un  doux  transport 
a  I'apparition  du  soleil  de  vos  beautes."  Leander, 
though  he  employs  none  of  Diafoirus's  figures  of 
speech,  is  no  less  academic  and  rhetorical."  When 
I  consider  my  condition,  merits,  and  position,"  he 
begins,  "I  shame  myself  with  the  peacock. When, 
on  the  contrary,  I  observe  and  consider  my  ap- 
proaching fortune,  I  plume  myself  with  the  pea- 
cock."* 

Thomas  Diafoirus,  his  head  crammed  with  polite 
speeches  that  he  has  learned  by  heart,  and  awhirl 
with  embarrassment,  takes  Angelique  for  his  pro- 
spective mother-in-law.  Peder,the  bookkeeper,  when 
he  stumbles  in  for  his  initial  appearance  in  Holberg's 
play,  similarly  mistakes  the  identity  of  the  principal 
figures.  In  order  to  have  the  embarrassing  business 
over  at  once,  he  addresses  his  speech  to  the  first 
woman  whom  he  chances  to  see ;  and  she  unfortu- 
nately proves  to  be  Pernille,  the  maid. 

Pedcr.  I  come  here  according  to  the  agreement  between  my 

father,  Erik  Madsen,  the  bookkeeper,  and  Mr.  Vielgeschrey, 

to  court  you,  lovely  maiden. 
Pernille.  You  are  making  a  mistake,  Mr.  Bookkeeper,  I  am 

the  maid.  My  mistress  will  honour  you  with  her  presence  in 

a  moment. t 

Before  this  ill-starred  entrance,  Pernille  and  Hen- 
rich  have  formed  a  plot  whereby  they  are  to  pass 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         113 

off  the  old  servant  Magdelone  upon  Peder  as  Leo- 
nora. Peder's  blunder,  accordingly,  gives  the  maid 
her  desired  opportunity  of  ushering  in  the  simpering 
Magdelone.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Holberg 
wrote  The  Busy  Man  with  his  eye  so  closely  fixed 
upon  Le  Malade  Imaginaire  that  he  was  able  to 
utilize  so  insignificant  a  comic  device  for  his  imme- 
diate dramatic  purpose.  As  the  plots  progress,  still 
other  similarities  in  the  incidental  comedy  of  the 
two  plays  appear.  Leonard,  in  The  Busy  Man^  crit- 
icises his  brother's  mania  from  the  point  of  view 
of  cold  common  sense,  just  as  Beralde  criticises  his 
brother  in  Le  Malade  Imaginaire.  At  the  close  of 
the  plays  Vielgeschrey  as  well  as  Argan  is  brought 
to  accept  his  daughter's  lover,  though,  to  be  sure, 
as  the  result  of  entirely  different  plots.  Argan  expe- 
riences an  actual  change  of  heart  at  the  sight  of 
Angelique's  manifestations  of  sincere  love  for  him 
which  his  feigned  death  calls  forth.  Vielgeschrey, 
for  his  part,  merely  accepts  a  fact  adroitly  accom- 
plished by  an  elaborate  series  of  disguises  and  tricks 
devised  by  Pernille.  At  the  last  moment,  however, 
each  father  shows  that  he  is  not  completely  regen- 
erate. Argan  consents  to  his  daughter's  marriage 
with  Cleante  only  on  condition  that  he  become  a 
doctor.  Vielgeschrey  makes  a  similar  request  of 
Leander  as  a  sort  of  condition  to  his  marriage. 


114         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

Vidgeschrey .  Is  it  certain,  then,  Monsieur,  that  you  will  take  up 

bookkeeping  ? 
Ltander.  Yes,  dear  father,  I  promise. 
Vielgeschrey .  Then  I  will  call  you  son-in-law  and  forget  all  the 

injuries  that  you  have  done  me.* 

The  two  plays  in  this  ^\'ay  preserve  to  the  end  a 
haunting  impression  of  correspondence,  due,  in  the 
main,  to  nothing  more  fundamental  than  continued 
similarity  of  incidental  comedy. 

Such  systematic  borrowing  of  Moliere's  comic 
devices  occurs  nowhere  else  in  Holberg's  w^ork.Yet 
fugitive  bits  of  the  former's  comedy  appear  there 
constantly.  Moliere,  for  example,  often  gives  his  dia- 
logue an  appearance  of  wit  by  casting  it  in  a  form  of 
exaggerated  symmetry. When  two  characters  be- 
come almost  lyrical  in  mutual  praise  or  blame,  this 
exact  verbal  balance  is  most  effective.  The  conversa- 
tion between  Vadius  and  Trissotin  in  Les  Femmes 
Savantes  is  an  excellent  example  of  the  mannerism 
familiar  to  every  reader  of  Moliere. 

Trissotin.  Rien  qui  soit  plus  charmant  que  vos  petits  rondeaux. 
Vadius.  Rien  de  si  plein  d' esprit  que  tous  vos  madrigaux. 
Trissotin.  Aux  ballades  surtout  vous  etes  admirable. 
Vadius.  Et  dans  les  bouts-rimes  je  vous  trouve  adorable. 

A  moment  later,  when  the  compliments  of  the  two 
change  to  bitter  abuse,  their  dialogue  remains  ridic- 
ulously antiphonal. 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         115 

Trissotin.  Allez,  petit  grimaud,  barbouilleur  de  papier. 
Vadius.  Allez,  rimeur  de  balle,  opprobre  du  metier. 

Trissotin.  Va,  va  restituer  tous  les  honteux  larcins 

Que  reclament  sur  toi  les  Grecs  et  les  Latins. 
Vadius.  Va,  va-t'en  faire  amende  honorable  au  Parnasse 
D'avoir  fait  a  tes  vers  estropier  Horace.* 

Holberg  often  employs  this  symmetry,  in  a  form  not 
unlike  that  of  classical  stichomythia,  to  give  point 
to  his  dialogue.  Most  frequently  it  adds  piquancy 
to  quarrels  in  themselves  termagant  and  vulgar. f 
A  typical  dispute  occurs  in  Henrich  and  Pemille. 
The  two  servants  have  been  engaged  in  mutual  de- 
ception. Henrich  has  passed  himself  off  on  Pernille 
as  his  master,  and  Pernille  with  equal  success  has 
fooled  Henrich  into  believing  that  she  is  her  mistress. 
While  playing  these  roles  they  court  and  marry  each 
other.  When  they  discover  the  deception  they  break 
out  into  the  following  rhythmic  denunciation : 

Pernille.  Oh,  let  me  tear  his  eyes  out  first ! 
Henrich.  Oh,  let  me  wring  her  neck  off  first ! 

Pemille.  I  thought  that  that  hangman's  knave  was  a  great  dandy. 
Henrich.  I  thought  that  that  harlot's  slave  was  a  rich  lady. 
Pernille.  I  see,  though,  that  he  is  a  fool. 
Henrich.  I  see,  though,  that  she  is  a  flirt. 
Pemille.  But  his  very  folly  dispelled  all  my  doubt, 
Henrich.  But  her  very  flirting  dispelled  all  my  doubt. 


116         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

Pemille.  He  took  his  master's  name  and  said  he  was  Leander. 
Henrich.  She  took  her  mistress's  name  and  said  she  was  Leo- 
nora.* 

The  elemental  coarse  comedy  of  this  scene  is  un- 
doubtedly refined  by  the  artificially  balanced  dia- 
logue. Other  artifices  of  Moliere's  style  Holberg 
seems  not  to  have  used  to  any  appreciable  extent. f 
Many  of  the  Frenchman's  comic  subtleties  were 
palpably  unsuited  to  Holberg's  colloquial  prose  and 
his  insatiable  realism.  The  extensive  similarities  in 
incidental  humour  between  the  two  dramatists  are, 
on  the  whole,  significant  not  so  much  because  they 
clarify  one's  notions  of  Holberg's  art  as  because 
they  reveal  the  intimacy  of  his  knowledge  of  Mo- 
liere. 

Many  of  the  similarities  between  the  work  of  Hol- 
berg and  Moliere  so  far  discussed  have  been  indi- 
cated in  Legrelle's  study;  and,  in  spite  of  certain 
errors  in  this  critic's  conclusions,  one  must  admit 
that  Holberg's  knowledge  of  Moliere  influenced  fun- 
damentally his  dramatic  ideas.  It  formed  his  gen- 
eral conception  of  a  comedy  of  character,  especially 
of  a  domestic  comedy  of  character.  It  supplied 
him  with  much  of  the  action  assigned  to  the  simi- 
lar members  of  similarly  constituted  families.  It  fur- 
nished him  with  the  complete  plot  of  one  of  his 
comedies  of  intrigue.  And,  finally,  it  suggested  to 
him  many  of  the  most  effective  bits  of  his  inciden- 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         117 

tal  comedy.  With  such  facts  before  him,  a  French 
critic  like  Legrelle  almost  inevitably  saw  in  Hol- 
berg  merely  a  weak  imitator  of  Moliere.  He  consid- 
ered Holberg's  divergences  from  his  French  master 
not  as  significant  exhibitions  of  originality,  but  as 
unsuccessful  attempts  at  imitation.  His  convenient 
explanation  of  Holberg  as  a  mere  Danish  Moliere 
is,  therefore,  quite  inadequate.  This  phrase,  if  em- 
ployed to  define  the  quality  of  Holberg's  humour, 
is  particularly  misleading.  The  works  of  the  two 
writers  undeniably  produce  radically  different  total 
impressions,  a  fact  which  proves  conclusively  that 
the  differences  between  them  are  more  fundamental 
than  the  similarities.  Indispensable  as  Legrelle' s 
study  is  to  every  student  of  Holberg,  it  should  be 
supplemented  and  corrected  by  a  sympathetic  analy- 
sis of  his  originality  in  just  those  plays  where  his 
debt  to  Moliere  seems  most  thoroughgoing.  Such 
an  analysis  will  show  that  into  each  one  of  his  bor- 
rowed forms  Holberg  introduced  much  of  his  own 
independent  comic  spirit. 

II 
The  Danish  author,  we  have  seen,  found  proto- 
types for  many  members  of  a  domestic  group  in 
the  work  of  Moliere.  Yet  he  was  too  keen  a  realist  to 
allow  well-developed  foreign  literary  types  to  become 
his  rigid  and  exclusive  models.  Once  supplied  with 


118         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

the  middle-class  personages  of  French  comedy, 
he  modified  and  developed  them  as  Danish  reality 
demanded.  His  Magdelone,  for  example,  proves 
often  to  be  a  copy  of  the  hard,  practical  mothers  of 
the  bourgeois  family  as  Moliere  conceived  it.  Yet  in 
more  than  one  play  she  becomes  an  obviously  origi- 
nal character,  possessing  little  or  no  resemblance  to 
Moliere's  figure.  Thus  in  Erasmus  Montanus^  Nille, 
as  the  mother  there  happens  to  be  called,  exhibits 
none  of  the  hard-headed  common  sense  that  the 
corresponding  French  person  always  possesses.  She 
is  by  nature  a  wondering  creature,  and  regards  the 
academic  accomplishments  of  her  pedantic  son  with 
a  kind  of  superstitious  terror.  She  really  fears  that 
his  triumphant  "Ergo,  you  are  a  stone,"  is  insid- 
iously causing  her  limbs  to  harden.  At  the  same 
time,  the  terror  arouses  in  her  a  kind  of  maternal 
rapture;  and  her  husband  shares  her  feeling  com- 
pletely. "Tears  often  come  to  my  eyes,"  he  says, 
"when  I  reflect  that  the  child  of  a  peasant  has 
become  so  learned."  Nille  has,  therefore,  no  chance 
to  play  the  traditional  role  of  forcing  her  attitude 
towards  the  son  upon  a  feebly  protesting  husband. 
In  any  case,  Nille's  simple,  wondering  nature  could 
never  have  appeared  domineering.  Though  occupy- 
ing the  same  position  in  the  household  as  that  habit- 
ually held  by  Moliere's  bourgeois  mothers,  Nille  is 
Holberg's  creation.  She  is  drawn  from  nature.  And- 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         119 

her  prototype  was  one  of  the  superstitious,  stupid, 
yet  robust  peasant  women  of  Zealand. 

Holberg's  Magdelones  are  at  other  times  indul- 
gent, comfortable  housewives,  full  of  an  easy  good 
humour  which  is  utterly  foreign  to  the  sharp-tongued 
females  in  Moliere.  Magdelone  in  Honourable  Amhi- 
tion.,  for  example,  plays  a  part  obviously  similar  to 
that  of  Madame  Jourdain.  She  is  as  much  averse 
to  her  husband's  silly  longing  for  a  title  as  is  the 
French  woman  to  her  husband's  similar  ambition. 
Yet  where  Madame  Jourdain  is  violent  and  shrew- 
ish, Magdelone  is  calm  and  indulgent. 

Magdelone.  My  dear  husband,  I  say  that  I  neither  can  nor  will 

oppose  you  in  this  matter. 
Jeronimus.  You  can,  then,  do  me  a  service  for  which  I  shall  be 

grateful  as  long  as  I  live. 
Magdelone.  What  is  tliat  ? 
Jeronimus.  It  is  to  take  the  blame  upon  youi-self,  so  that  I  may 

say  that  I  am  seeking  to  be  raised  to  the  peerage  against  my 

own  wishes,  but  that  my  wife  has  her  heart  set  upon  a  title. 
Magdelone.  That 's  just  it !  We  poor  women  have  always  to  take 

the  blame. 
Jeronimus.  Oh,  but  help  me  out  in  this  affair,  my  chickabiddy  ! 

No  one  lays  up  such  an  ambition  against  a  woman. 
Magdelone.  You  may  thank  God,  you  men,  that  you  have  us  for 

cloaks. 
Jeronimus.  Help  me  out,  anyway,  this  once ! 
Magdelone.  Well,  I  have  taken  the  blame  so  often  that  I  may 

as  well  take  it  in  this  matter,  too.* 


120         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

The  homely  humour  of  this  universally  true  situa- 
tion is  revealed  with  a  directness  and  a  bald  real- 
ism quite  unlike  anything  in  Moliere.  Magdelone 
has  not  come  into  Holberg's  comedy  by  way  of  any 
French  comic  tradition.  She  is,  on  the  contrary,  an 
unmistakable  transcript  from  Danish  life. 

Geske,  the  bourgeois  mother  in  The  Political 
Tinker,  possesses  characteristics  of  another  sort, 
yet  just  as  clearly  native  and  original.  She  is,  to 
be  sure,  conventionally  vigorous  in  objecting  to 
her  husband's  neglect  of  business  for  political  va- 
pourings.  Yet  her  furious  outbursts  are  mere  exhi- 
bitions of  temper.  They  betray,  indeed,  a  complete 
lack  of  control,  and  leave  Hermann  von  Bremen  bat- 
tered but  steadfast  in  his  ideas.  Later,  when  Her- 
mann's political  nonsense  seems  to  have  resulted 
in  his  elevation  to  the  office  of  mayor  of  Hamburg, 
Geske  shows  immediately  the  feminine  submission 
which  is  instinctive  with  women  of  her  sort.  She 
becomes  most  deferential  to  all  his  wishes.  Every 
change  in  their  way  of  living  which  her  husband 
thinks  their  rise  to  power  demands,  she  accepts  as 
inevitable.  Even  orders  which  arouse  in  her  a  nat- 
ural revolt,  she  obeys  meekly.  The  supreme  test  of 
her  submission  comes  when  Hermann  concludes 
a  long  list  of  instructions  by  saying:  "Listen.  I 
forgot  one  thing.  You  must  also  procure  a  lapdog, 
which  you  must  love  as  your  own  daughter.  Our 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         121 

neighbour  Arianke  has  a  fine  dog  which  she  can  lend 
you  just  as  well  as  not,  until  we  can  find  one  of  our 
own.  You  must  give  the  dog  a  French  name,  which 
I  shall  hit  upon  when  I  get  time  to  think  about  it. 
This  dog  must  always  sit  in  your  lap,  and  you  must 
kiss  it  a  half  score  of  times  at  the  least,  when  we 
have  callers."  *  Although  nauseated  at  the  thought 
of  kissing  Arianke's  dirty  beast,  Geske  bravely  ac- 
quiesces in  this  demand  of  fashion,  and  later  in  the 
play  she  appears,  dressed  in  all  her  finery,  lugging 
a  great  hairy  dog  about  in  her  arms.  Geske  in  a 
scene  of  this  sort  is  drawn  with  a  relentless  realism 
which  Moliere  would  have  thought  indecent. 

All  of  these  women  are  utterly  independent  of  the 
bourgeois  mothers  in  Moliere.  They  show  how  much 
the  following  sweeping  statement  of  Legrelle  needs 
to  be  modified  :  "  Le  personnage  de  Magdelone  dans 
Holberg  est  congu  sur  ce  modele  [that  of  the  bour- 
geois mother  in  Moliere]  .C'est  surtout  par  ses  exces 
d'autorite,  plus  ou  moins  couronnes  de  succes, 
qu'elle  nous  prete  a  rire,  soit  a  ses  depens,  soit  a 
ceux  de  son  mari. ' '  f  Holberg  had  his  eyes  too  firmly 
fixed  on  the  life  about  him  to  let  his  admiration  for 
any  conventional  literary  type  destroy  his  power  of 
comic  invention. 

The  same  uncompromising  love  of  realism  led 
Holberg,  at  least  once,  to  make  even  his  amorosa  an 
individualized  peasant  girl.  The  lovers,  Leanderand 


122         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

Leonora,  are  usually,  to  be  sure,  ridiculously  per- 
functory figures.  They  plainly  bore  the  author.  Never 
having  been  in  love,  he  apparently  made  no  effort 
to  portray  his  lovers  as  possessed  of  any  real  emo- 
tion. He  wished  to  force  the  inevitable  lovers  to 
occupy  a  strictly  subordinate  place ;  and  he  deliber- 
ately modelled  them,  not  upon  figures  which  Moliere 
had  created  out  of  the  absorbing  romance  of  his  own 
life,  but  upon  the  mere  puppet  amoroso  and  amorosa 
of  the  commedia  deW arte.  Leonora  is  never  a  clumsy 
imitation  of  the  charming  young  girls  of  Moliere, 
or,  as  Legrelle calls  her,  "une  image  paleetdecoloree, 
une  sorte  d'ombre  vivante,  de  Lucile  ou  d' Agnes." 
The  one  time  that  Holberg  gives  his  amorosa  a  de- 
cided individuality,  he  does  not  bestow  upon  her  the 
graces  of  these  French  characters.  He  makes  her, 
on  the  contrary,  a  copy  of  the  Danish  peasant  girls 
whom  he  evidently  knew.  Lisbed,  the  betrothed  of 
Rasmus  Berg,  in  Erasmus  Montanus^  from  the  mo- 
ment that  she  enters,  is  a  lovesick  rustic.  She  comes 
in,  simpering,  with  her  father,  Jeronimus,  and  her 
mother,  Magdelone,  to  find  out  when  her  lover  is 
to  reach  home. 

Jeronimus.  Good  morning,  cousin!  Have  you  any  news  from  your 

son  ? 
Jeppe.  Yes,  I  think  that  he  will  be  home  to-day  or  to-morrow. 
Lisbed.  Oh,  is  it  possible  ?  Now  my  dream  has  come  true. 
Jeronimus.  What  was  your  dream  ? 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         123 

Lisbed.  I  dreamt  that  I  slept  with  him  last  night. 
Magdelone.  Dreams  surely  mean  something.  Dreams  are  not  to 
be  despised. 

Lisbed.  But  is  it  really  true  tliat  Rasmus  Berg  is  coming  home 

to-morrow  ? 
Jeronimus.  Why,  my  daughter  !  You  should  n't  let  folks  see  that 

you  are  so  much  in  love. 
Lisbed.  Oh,  are  you  sure  that  he  is  coming  home  to-morrow  ? 
Jeronimus.  Yes,  yes !  You  hear,  don't  you,  that  he  is  coming 

home  to-morrow  ? 
Lisbed.  How  long  is  it  till  to-morrow,  dear  father  ? 
Jeronimus.  What  silly  nonsense  !  These  lovere  act  like  perfect 

idiots ! 
Lisbed.  Oh,  I  shall  count  every  single  moment  !* 

The  elemental,  giggling  love  of  this  peasant  girl  is 
extravagant  enough  to  make  her  a  caricature.  The 
author's  conception  of  the  lovesick  girl  is,  however, 
neither  an  impotent  copy  of  something  in  Moliere 
nor  a  perfunctory  repetition  of  the  amorosa  in  the 
commedia  deW arte:  it  is  rather  his  own  interpretation 
of  Danish  life. 

This  keen  insight  leads  Holberg  in  many  other 
places  away  from  Moliere  into  channels  of  striking 
originality.  Even  in  a  mere  comedy  of  intrigue  like 
The  Eleventh  of  June.,  the  plot  of  which  is  carefully 
modelled  on  that  of  Monsieur  de  Pourceaugnac,  he 
finds  an  opportunity  to  draw  native  peasant  charac- 
ter. In  the  Danish,  as  in  the  French  play,  the  audi- 


124         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

ence  is  supposed  to  derive  most  of  its  amusement 
from  the  success  of  a  swindling  scheme.  Yet  a  far- 
cically conceived  fellow  from  Limousin  clearly  could 
not  serve  as  a  model  for  a  Danish  country  lout  like 
Studenstrup,  the  victim  in  Holberg's  play.  This 
boy  is  so  real  a  representative  of  the  Danish  peas- 
antry that  whenever  he  is  on  the  stage,  it  is  his  char- 
acter, and  not  the  intrigue,  that  holds  the  interest  of 
the  audience.  His  abysmal  stupidity  is  continually 
intensified  by  a  petty  sort  of  cleverness  which  he 
imagines  to  be  shrewdness.  His  boasts  of  cunning 
in  the  following  passage  are  particularly  amusing 
because  the  audience  at  the  time  knows  that  he  is 
securely  involved  in  the  toils  of  the  plot.  After  hav- 
ing been  successfully  lodged  with  "cousin  Jacob," 
the  proprietor  of  a  disreputable  lodging-house,  he 
complains  to  him  of  the  attempts  that  the  baggage 
porters  have  made  to  cheat  him. 

Studenstrup.  As  soon  as  they  see  a  stranger,  they  think  that  he 
is  something  to  angle  for.  But  they  shan't  cheat  me.  The  Stu- 
denstrups  are  n't  the  sort  of  folks  to  be  led  about  by  the  nose. 
They  know,  too,  what  money  is  for. 

Jacob.  No,  no  !  I  can  see  by  your  face,  cousin,  that  no  one  could 
fool  you  easily. 

Studenstrup.  I  could  tell  any  fellow  who  tried  it  by  his  looks, 
even  if  he  were  Alexander  the  Great  himself.  Clever  as  those 
porters  were,  I  fixed  them,  just  the  same.  I  passed  off  on  them 
a  half  crown  piece  covered  with  quicksilver  for  an  eight  crovvTi 
piece,  and  so  got  back  six  crowns  in  change. 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         125 

Jacob.  But  I  am  afraid  that  when  they  notice  their  mistake  they 
will  come  back  here. 

Studenstrup.  Then  I  will  swear  that  they  never  got  the  coun- 
terfeit from  me,  for  I  have  some  small  oaths  in  reserve,  so 
that  I  can  swear  myself  clear  without  perjuring  myself.  If,  for 
example,  I  swear  that  I  never  agreed  to  pay  them  a  cent,  I 
mean,  as  a  gift.  If  I  should  swear  now  that  I  have  n't  paid 
those  fellows  a  thing,  I  add  to  myself  that  the  money  was  n't 
for  them,  but  for  others  for  the  porters'  work.* 

This  boy's  credulity  and  his  self-deluded  belief  in 
his  own  shrewdness  make  him  a  representative  of 
a  universal  peasant  type.  As  such  he  is  perennially 
funny.  The  presence  of  this  original  figure,  indeed, 
makes  the  essential  humour  of  the  play  almost  com- 
pletely independent  of  the  borrowed  plot.  Even  in 
Holberg's  comedies  of  intrigue,  the  characters,  and 
not  the  plot,  prove  to  be  the  comic  elements  of  greatest 
importance. 

The  intense  interest  in  human  beings  which  Hol- 
berg  always  showed,  led  him  to  transform  situations 
that  in  Moliere  are  frankly  extravagant  into  devices 
for  illuminating  character.  The  denouement  of  Le 
Bourgeois  Gentilhomme  is  nothing  but  picturesque 
farce.  It  is  an  extremely  common  dramatic  conclu- 
sion of  the  Itahan  Theatre,  modified  in  a  manner 
which  allowed  the  author  to  introduce  the  Turkish 
ballet  he  had  been  commanded  to  devise.  M.  Jour- 
dain,  it   will  be   remembered,  finds   Cleante,    his 


126         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

daughter's  lover,  a  person  of  by  no  means  enough 
importance  to  satisfy  his  lofty  social  aspirations.  The 
despised  youth,  accordingly,  disguises  himself  as 
"  le  fils  du  Grand  Turc,"  who,  it  appears,  is  also 
eager  to  marry  Mile.  Jourdain.  After  he  has  entered 
in  the  magnificent  array  of  an  Oriental  potentate  and 
talked  a  little  gibberish,  Turkish  dancers  begin  a 
gorgeous  ballet.  This  dance,  M.  Jourdain  believes, 
is  a  part  of  his  ceremonial  initiation  into  the  holy 
order  ofl  Turkish  JiIama?noiichi.  Once  made  a  mem- 
ber of  this  exalted  order,  he  delightedly  promises 
his  daughter  to  her  disguised  lover.  The  play  ends 
with  another  ballet,  devised  to  entertain  thecompany 
until  the  eagerly  awaited  notary  arrives  to  arrange 
for  the  marriage  ceremony.  The  dhiouement  \s  thus 
a  mere  spectacle,  much  like  that  of  a  modern  comic 
opera.  It  makes  no  pretence  of  being  the  logical 
conclusion  of  a  comedy  of  character. 

Now  Holberg  saw  that  this  inconsequential  gam- 
bol could  be  converted  into  a  suitable  ending  for 
his  Do7i  Ranudo.  In  this  play,  the  comic  hero  and 
his  wife  are  the  modern  representatives  of  an  old 
and  very  much  decayed  family  of  Spanish  nobility. 
Their  daughter  has  for  a  lover  a  rich  young  par- 
venu, Gonzalo.  His  family  is,  indeed,  so  scandalously 
new  that  his  suit  is  contemptuously  rejected  by 
Don  Ranudo  and  his  wife.  Leonora,  the  intriguing 
maid,  feels,  however,  that  the  marriage  must  be 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         127 

accomplished  to  save  the  family  from  actual  star- 
vation. Accordingly,  she  makes  use  of  the  plot  by 
which  M.  Jourdain  has  been  tricked.  She  has  Gon- 
zalo  disguise  himself  as  Melchior  Caspar  Balthasar 
Theophrastus  Ariel  David  Georgius,  Prince  of 
Ethiopia.  After  this  pompous  suitor  has  been  an- 
nounced, Holberg  introduces  a  number  of  scenes  de- 
vised to  display  the  character  of  Don  Ranudo  and 
his  wife.  He  pictures  the  preparations  which  they 
make  to  receive  the  Ethiopian  prince.  Although  offi- 
cers of  the  law  have  just  confiscated  all  their  pos- 
sessions, including  most  of  their  clothes,  they  are 
determined  to  receive  the  prince  with  the  lofty  dig- 
nity and  hauteur  that  befit  members  of  the  ancient 
nobility  of  Spain.  Don  Ranudo  accordingly  wraps 
himself  in  a  long  black  military  cape,  and  his  wife 
dons  a  dress  which  their  maid  has  Ion  g  ago  discarded . 
Then  they  send  word  to  the  prince  that  they  have 
clothed  themselves  in  this  wretched  apparel  as  a  kind 
of  desperate  penance  for  their  sins.  But  their  religious 
humility,  they  will  have  it  understood,  has  not  modi- 
fied in  the  least  their  social  self-respect.  Don  Ranudo 
refuses  absolutely  to  remove  his  hat  in  the  presence 
of  the  prince.  "No!  I  will  never  submit  to  that," 
he  explains,  with  wounded  dignity.  "Should  I,  a 
Colibrados,  a  grandee  of  Spain,  who  have  the  right 
to  talk  to  the  King  himself  with  my  hat  on ,  —  should 
I  stand  bareheaded  before  a  mere  foreign  prince  ? ' ' 


128         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

After  numerous  scenes  of  this  sort  of  exposition 
of  character,  in  which  Holberg's  comic  invention  is 
at  its  best,  the  intrigue  proceeds  almost  exactly  as 
in  Moliere.  For  the  Turkish  ballet  is  substituted,  to 
be  sure,  a  gorgeous  procession  of  Arabs  who  form 
the  retinue  of  the  prince.  Then  the  lover's  disguise, 
as  in  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme^  accomplishes  its 
purpose.  To  the  overwhelming  shame  of  Don  Ra- 
nudo  and  his  wife,  their  daughter  is  actually  married 
to  the  parvenu  Gonzalo  before  they  discover  the  se- 
cret of  his  disguise.  The  woman  is  frankly  defeated 
and  crushed  by  the  disgrace.  As  the  curtain  falls, 
she  cries  to  her  husband,  "Let  us  go  into  a  clois- 
ter." Thus,  unlike  the  central  figure  in  most  of 
Holberg's  plays,  these  insanely  proud  Spaniards 
are  dismissed  as  unregenerate.  They  remain  to  the 
end  fit  only  for  the  mocking  laughter  of  the  audi- 
ence. 

Much  alike  as  are  the  denouements  of  these  two 
plays,  Holberg  has  made  the  extravagant  burlesque 
of  Moliere  a  more  integral  part  of  his  comedy.  The 
appearance  of  the  fraudulent  Prince  of  Ethiopia  is 
not  the  mere  occasion  for  a  picturesque  ballet.  It 
gives  Holberg,  on  the  contrary,  a  clever  opportu- 
nity for  displaying  and  developing  the  characteristic 
foibles  of  the  Ranudos.  He  has  transformed  a  device 
which  in  Moliere  is  amusing  only  for  its  gorgeous 
extravagance,  into  a  point  of  illumination  in  one  of 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         129 

his  comedies  of  character.  Holberg's  interest  in  the 
realistic  display  of  human  nature  remained  primary 
with  him,  even  when,  as  in  the  case  of  DonRanudo, 
the  prototype  of  his  figure  was  not  to  be  found  in 
Danish  peasant  life. 

Holberg's  comic  heroes  differ  from  those  of  Mo- 
liere,  however,  not  only  in  expressing  a  more  un- 
conditional realism,  but  also  in  being  possessed 
by  foibles  of  a  distinctly  different  kind.  The  satire 
of  the  two  authors  thus  becomes  an  expression  of 
two  essentially  unlike  comic  spirits.  The  objects  of 
Moliere's  satire  are  of  two  sorts.  He  ridicules,  in 
the  first  place,  fundamental  blemishes  of  character, 
which  usually  amount  to  distinct  moral  turpitude. 
Such  are  the  foibles  satirized  in  Tartuffe,  U  Avare^ 
Don  Juan^  and  Le  Misanthrope.  The  standard  by 
which  such  follies  are  measured  is  simply  a  nor- 
mal sense  of  moral  values.  Folly  of  this  nature  Hol- 
berg  never  ridicules.  The  second  object  of  Moliere's 
satire  is  of  a  slightly  different  sort.  It  is  a  kind  of 
serious  mania  which  engrosses  and  vitiates  the 
character  possessed.  Argan  in  Le  Malade  Imagi- 
naire  and  M .  Jourdain  in  Le  Bourgeois  Genhlhomme 
are  the  victims  of  this  kind  of  infatuation.  The  cri- 
terion by  which  such  follies  are  judged  is  nothing 
but  a  normal  man's  conception  of  sanity.  Moliere 
satirizes,  then,  in  his  comedies  of  character,  grave 
human  failings,  which,  in  spite  of  the  implied  com- 


130         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

ment  of  a  mocking  observer,  lead  the  action  almost 
inevitably  toward  tragedy.  Indeed,  the  tragic  end- 
ing in  many  of  his  plays  is  avoided  only  by  a  kind 
of  deus  ex  machina.  The  nature  of  Moliere's  hu- 
mour is  partly  determined  by  this  swift  and  sardonic 
avoidance  of  tragedy.  To  some  extent  the  objects  of 
his  satire  give  his  comedy  its  unique  mixture  of 
gaiety  and  melancholy. 

A  careful  study  of  Holberg's  comedies  shows 
that  he  is  less  interested  in  fundamental  reform  of 
character  than  in  a  growth  of  social  amenity.  In  The 
Political  Tinker^  his  object  is  to  ridicule  the  confidence 
that  a  mere  tinker  possesses  in  his  ability  to  direct 
aifairs  of  state.  In  The  Fickle-minded  Woman ^  he  sat- 
irizes intellectual  volatility;  in  Jean  de  France^  the  af- 
fected assumption  of  French  airs  and  graces;  in  Gert 
Westphaler^  the  volubility  of  a  barber ;  in  Erasmus 
Montanus^  the  complacent  and  stubborn  pedantry  of 
a  young  scholar ;  in  Don  Raniido^  the  intense  pride  of 
a  family  which  has  nothing  but  age  to  recommend 
it ;  in  Without  Head  or  Tail,  both  superstition  and 
superficial  skepticism ;  in  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck, 
literary  toadying ;  in  Honourable  Ambition,  the  eager 
but  timid  ambition  of  a  well-to-do  citizen  for  a  title ; 
in  The  Busy  Man,  the  feverish,  ineffectual  activity 
of  one  who  really  has  nothing  to  do ;  in  Pernille'' s 
Short  Experience  as  a  Lady,  the  eagerness  of  an  old 
fellow  to  marry  a  young  girl  for  reasons  palpably 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         131 

mercenary ;  in  The  Bridegroom  Metamorphosed^  an 
old  woman's  affectation  of  youthful  frivolity;  and 
in  A  Philosopher  in  his  Own  Estimation^  insincere 
professions  of  philosophy. 

No  desire  to  satirize  either  moral  faults  or  feverish 
manias  provoked  the  composition  of  any  of  these 
works.  The  standard  by  which  the  fpllies  displayed 
in  them  are  to  be  measured  is  merely  a  well-de- 
veloped sense  of  social  fitness.  Partly  for  this  rea- 
son, Holberg's  hearty  laughter  is  never  restrained 
by  any  underlying  melancholy.  He  knows  that  his 
fools  are  not  knaves.  They  need  not  so  much  to  ex- 
perience a  fundamental  reform  in  character  as  to  gain 
a  little  social  sense.  Moliere's  idea  of  the  comic  ex- 
presses some  of  that  mixture  of  gaiety  and  intensity 
characteristic  of  the  Renaissance;  Holberg  expresses 
the  easy  urbanity  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  good-humoured  attitude  which  Holberg  ha- 
bitually assumes  toward  the  world  distinguishes  his 
work  from  that  of  his  French  predecessor  in  other 
points  than  in  the  choice  of  their  comic  heroes. The 
social  manners  which  Holberg  chose  to  ridicule  are 
naturally  different  in  kind  from  any  that  Moliere 
could  possibly  have  selected.  The  latter  can  hardly 
be  imagined  as  levelling  a  satire  against  inordinate 
affection  for  lapdogs,  as  Holberg  does  in  Melampe; 
against  pietistic  objections  to  masked  balls,  as  he 
does  in  Masquerades ;  or  against  a  superstitious  be- 


132         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

lief  in  legerdemain,  such  as  is  made  fun  of  in  JFitch- 
crajl.  Yet  all  these  social  follies  are  natural  objects 
of  Holberg's  satiric  attack. 

The  same  desire  to  preach  humanistic  control  is 
often  shown  in  the  incidental  essays  which  Holberg 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  Moliere's  exponents  of  com- 
mon sense,  who  appear  in  modified  form  in  his  com- 
edies. Through  these  figures,  Holberg  himself  ob- 
viously addresses  his  audience.  Leonard,  in  Mas- 
querades^ is  one  of  these  mouthpieces  of  the  genial 
author.  By  his  words  he  attempts  to  induce  his  un- 
compromising friend  Jeronimus  to  take  a  more  rea- 
sonable attitude  towards  the  youthful  indiscretions 
of  his  son,  and  particularly  toward  the  boy's  delight 
in  going  to  masquerades.  After  Jeronimus,  for  ex- 
ample, has  threatened  his  servant  Henrich  with 
abrupt  dismissal  and  his  son  with  disinheritance,  if 
the  pair  ever  dance  at  another  masked  ball,  Leonard 
makes  the  following  long  conciliatory  speech : 

"Come,  come,  cousin,  do  not  be  so  hot-headed ! 
Let  us  take  the  middle  course !  Only  hear  without 
prejudice  my  humble  opinion  of  masquerades.  I  do 
not  condemn  masquerades  because  they  are  mas- 
querades, but  because  people  make  a  habit  of  them. 
Frivolous  ways  of  passing  the  time  are  sometimes 
as  necessary  for  certain  people  as  food  and  drink. 
Aside  from  the  service  they  render  in  cheering  people 
up,  they  are  a  very  ingenious  invention,  in  that  they 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         133 

represent  to  men  the  natural  equality  which  existed 
in  the  beginning  before  pride  of  rank  became  pre- 
dominant. In  those  days,  a  man  considered  himself 
as  none  too  good  to  associate  with  anyone.  In  the 
same  way,  so  long  as  a  masquerade  lasts,  the  servant 
is  just  as  good  as  his  master.  I  condemn,  therefore, 
not  masquerades,  but  their  abuse.  When  young  men 
go  to  masquerades  three  times  a  week,  they  waste 
both  their  money  and  their  health,  and  besides,  they 
steal  three  days  from  the  week, — sometimes,  in- 
deed, the  whole  week;  for  through  continual  revel 
and  sleep  they  become  entirely  unfitted  for  business. 
Licensed  masquerades,  therefore,  exist  nowhere 
throughout  the  entire  year.  To  dance  a  certain  num- 
ber of  times  a  year,  either  masked  or  unmasked,  is 
no  evil;  but  dancing  which  lasts  the  whole  year 
through,  can  transform  the  best  ordered  city  into 
a  huge  madhouse."* 

Long  undramatic  speeches  like  this  often  interrupt 
the  action  in  Holberg's  comedies.  Although  usually 
put  into  the  mouth  of  a  dramatic  personage,  they 
are  obviously  expressions  of  the  author's  own  opin- 
ions. Holberg  seems  frequently  to  have  been  unable 
or  unwilling  to  reduce  his  discursive  satire  to  sharply 
defined  comic  action.  These  incidental  essays  are 
the  result  of  that  independent  satiric  temper  which 
distinguishes  his  comedy  at  many  points  from  that 
of  Moliere. 


134         HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE 

The  radical  difference,  however,  in  the  effect 
which  the  entire  w^ork  of  the  two  men  produces  upon 
even  the  most  superficial  reader  is  due  largely  to 
the  difference  in  the  kind  of  realism  which  they  felt 
bound  to  show  on  the  stage.  Moliere  was  essen- 
tially a  courtier.  He  wrote  for  audiences  who  pos- 
sessed an  instinctive  sense  of  form  and  a  preference 
for  refined  and  thoughtful  laughter.  His  figures, 
however  vividly  conceived,  were  drawn  only  after  a 
certain  compromise  with  realism  had  been  effected. 
They  are  usually  members  of  the  bourgeoisie^ — a 
class  rendered  thoroughly  conventional  by  social 
usages.  They  are,  therefore,  always  well-mannered 
and  decently  behaved.  They  are  never  dirty,  ragged, 
coarse — in  a  word,  never  clearly  elemental.  These 
middle-class  folk,  furthermore,  are  always  seen,  as 
it  were,  only  in  the  highly  polished  mirror  of  some 
drawing-room,  and  they  have  been  made  as  re- 
spectable as  possible  for  the  social  ceremony  of  their 
introduction.  Moliere' s  audiences  were  not  sup- 
posed to  grow  unbecomingly  merry.  However  keenly 
they  were  amused,  their  laughter  was  always  conde- 
scending, and,  like  all  thoughtful  mirth,  politely 
restrained. 

Holberg,  on  the  contrary,  wrote  for  people  with 
little  or  no  literary  and  dramatic  background.  They 
were  not  satisfied  with  comedy  unless  it  aroused 
their  hearty  and  boisterous  laughter.  To  amuse  them 


HOLBERG  AND  MOLIERE         135 

Holberg  became  thoroughly  uncompromising  in  his 
realism.  He  took  them  without  apology  directly  into 
the  stuffy  houses  of  Jeronimus  and  Magdelone,  into 
a  lying-in  chamber,  or  even  to  see  the  dirty,  drunken 
peasant  Jeppe  lying  on  a  dung-heap.  He  insisted 
that  his  audiences  should  see  everything  that  he 
saw,  so  that  they  might  join  him  in  his  shouts  of 
glee.  If  the  thoughtful  members  of  the  crowd  chose, 
they  might  comprehend  the  author's  clear  satiric 
purpose ;  but  every  one,  down  to  the  most  reck- 
less, was  given  all  the  opportunities  for  laughter  that 
he  craved. 

When  the  comic  spirit  of  two  writers  is  so  dif- 
ferent, similarities  in  details  of  dramatic  technique 
sink  to  a  position  of  comparative  insignificance.  It 
is  misleading,  then,  to  regard  Holberg  as  a  mere 
imitator  of  Moliere,  or  to  speak  of  him  as  the  Danish 
Moliere.  He  is  only  a  little  more  reasonably  called 
the  Danish  Plautus.  The  truth  is,  not  only  that  Hol- 
berg possessed  a  profoundly  original  comic  spirit, 
but  also  that  with  the  dramatic  ideas  which  he 
learned  from  Moliere  he  combined  and  interrelated 
those  derived  from  other  sources.  Therefore,  before 
Holberg' s  original  genius  can  be  finally  described, 
his  indebtedness  to  other  dramatic  and  literary  tra- 
ditions must  be  as  carefully  appraised  as  Legrelle 
has  sought  to  appraise  the  debt  that  he  owes  to 
Moliere.  Legrelle's  thesis  is  too  one-sided  to  be  just. 


HOLBERG  AND  THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOLBERG  AND  THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE 

THOUGH  Holberg  is  deeply  indebted  to  the 
plays  of  Moliere,  he  owes  a  no  less  important 
debt  to  the  commedia  del P  arte.  Curiously  enough, 
this  relation  has  never  been  thoroughly  investigated 
or  accurately  appraised.*  Of  the  many  forms  which 
Italian  comedy  assumed,  Holberg  seems  to  have 
known  only  the  one  that  flourished  in  France  dur- 
ing the  last  years  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Italian  comedians  first  went  to  Paris  in  1571,  at 
the  request  of  Catherine  de'  Medici,  to  take  part 
in  the  festivities  arranged  to  celebrate  the  entry  of 
Charles  IX  and  the  crowning  of  his  queen.  Marie 
de'  Medici  also  helped  to  keep  performances  of  the 
commedia  deW  arte  a  fashion  of  the  French  court. 
After  1571,  therefore,  whenever  the  troublous  times 
permitted,  a  troupe  of  Italian  comedians  was  likely 
to  be  playing  in  Paris.  Almost  without  exception, 
the  most  famous  Italian  actors  played  there  at  some 
time  in  their  career,  and  many  of  the  important  col- 
lections of  the  commedia  delV  arte  are  associated  with 
companies  which  had  appeared  at  the  French  court. f 

These  foreign  actors  invariably  returned  to  Italy 
after  a  comparatively  short  visit.  No  one  of  them 
thought  of  establishing  himself  permanently  in  Paris 


140  HOLBERG  AND 

until  1662,  when  the  company  of  Giuseppe  Bianchi 
became  definitely  settled  in  the  Palais  Royal.  Since 
this  hall  had  already  been  assigned  to  Moliere's  com- 
pany,* for  a  long  time  the  two  troupes  played  there 
on  different  days.  Throughout  all  the  combinations 
which  the  French  companies  effected  after  Moliere's 
death,  the  Italians  maintained  their  individuaHty. 
They  were  still  great  favourites  with  the  public  in 
1697,  when  they  were  abruptly  dismissed.  The  sen- 
sitive old  king  had  probably  imagined  one  of  their 
plays,  LaFausse  Hypocrite^  to  be  a  satire  on  Madame 
de  Maintenon.  The  Italians  were  driven  into  the 
provinces  until  Orleans  assumed  the  regency,  when 
their  theatre  was  one  of  the  many  institutions  of 
amusement  to  be  restored.  During  the  early  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  a  company  headed  by  the 
well-known  Louis  Andre  Riccoboni  enjoyed  great 
popularity,  but  it  gradually  lost  favour  with  the  pub- 
lic, and  in  1 780  it  was  merged  in  the  Opera  Comique. 
Little  of  Holberg's  knowledge  even  of  French 
forms  of  the  commedia  dell '  arte  could  have  been 
gained  from  visiting  the  theatre. f  All  of  his  so- 
journs in  Paris,  with  the  exception  of  his  stay  of  ten 
months  beginning  June,  1725,  were  made  either 
before  the  Italian  comedy  had  been  reestablished, 
or  after  he  had  written  all  save  the  very  latest  of  his 
own  dramas.  The  exact  knowledge  of  the  conven- 
tions and  traditions  of  the  commedia  dell '  aite  that 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     141 

his  work  reveals  must,  therefore,  have  been  acquired 
from  printed  plays.  The  one  collection  of  this  sort 
which  he  certainly  knew  was  made  by  the  actor 
Evaristo  Gherardi  in  1700.  It  consists  of  fifty-five 
comedies  which  the  Italian  actors  in  Paris  had  pre- 
sented between  the  years  1682  and  1697.  Besides 
this  book,  Holberg  may  have  seen  a  collection  of  the 
plays  of  Domenico  Biancolelli  which  he  had  given 
in  the  French  provinces  during  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  his  company  was  exiled 
from  Paris. 

The  commedia  dell '  arte  as  it  appears  in  Gherar- 
di's  collection  has  lost  some  of  its  most  distinctive 
features.  Pulcinella,*  the  oldest  figure,  the  proto- 
type indeed  of  many  other  buffoons,  does  not  appear 
in  any  of  these  late  plays.  Nor  does  the  renowned 
Capitano  Spavento  occupy  a  position  comparable 
either  in  importance  or  extravagance  to  the  one 
that  by  tradition  is  rightfully  his.  The  earliest  plays 
in  Gherardi 's  collection  were  written  fully  twenty 
years  after  the  Italians  had  been  permanently  estab- 
lished in  Paris,  and  during  much  of  the  time  they 
had  been  acting  in  the  same  theatre  with  some  of  the 
best  French  companies.  This  association  definitely 
modified  their  original  comic  manner.  In  Gherardi 's 
plays  French  satire  and  French  raillery  have  in  a 
measure  superseded  the  original  fantastic  action. 
The  zanies  restrain  their  impulse  towards  physical 


142  HOLBERG  AND 

farce  long  enough  to  utter  some  of  the  traditional 
French  diatribes  against  marriage ;  and  the  orgy 
of  trickery  and  disguising  under  the  windows  of 
Pantalone's  house  often  gives  place  to  a  satire  on 
French  society,  assembled  in  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries  or  at  the  baths  of  Porte  Saint-Bernard. 

Moreover,  as  the  actors  began  to  consider  them- 
selves Parisians,  they  became  eager  to  present  plays 
in  French.  Not  trusting  themselves  to  improvise  in  a 
foreign  language,  they  engaged  French  playwrights 
to  compose  at  least  parts  of  comedies  for  them .  Au- 
thors like  Regnard,  Dufresny,  and  Palaprat,*  who 
afterwards  made  great  reputations  in  plays  written 
for  the  French  comedians,  began  their  careers  by 
writing  scenes  for  the  Italians.  The  whole  of  Gherar- 
di's  book  was  made  up  of  apparently  complete  com- 
edies of  dialogue  thus  composed,  and  so  it  differed 
fundamentally  from  earlier  collections  of  the  corn- 
media  delV  arte.  These  had  consisted  of  a  number  of 
mere  scenarios,  outlines  of  the  action  of  each  scene, 
in  which  the  dialogue  was  left  entirely  to  the  actors' 
improvisation ;  or  they  had  been  collections  of  vari- 
ous unconnected  dialogues  and  monologues  which 
some  character,  like  the  Capitano  Spavento,  in- 
serted into  plays  at  his  own  discretion.  The  material 
which  the  French  playwright  supplied  never  formed, 
however,  more  than  a  part  of  an  entire  comedy. 
It  was  eked  out  with  Italian  scenes  of  improvisa- 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     143 

tion,  conceived  in  the  traditional  spirit  of  the  naive 
commed'ia  deW  arte.  The  French  playwrights,  then, 
although  often  satirizing  contemporary  Parisian 
life  in  a  manner  plainly  influenced  by  Moliere  and 
other  French  writers  of  comedy,  were  compelled  to 
conform  strictly  to  many  of  the  conventions  of  the 
Italians.  The  action  had  to  be  based  upon  the  efforts 
of  the  amoroso  to  marry  the  amorosa  in  spite  of  the 
determination  of  her  father  to  have  her  marry  the 
pedantic  old  doctor.  Colombine  had  to  be  given  a 
good  chance  to  display  her  facility  in  the  invention  of 
impudent  intrigues.  Arlequin  had  to  be  granted  the 
opportunity  of  assuming  numerous  disguises  and 
of  satisfying  his  incorrigible  appetite  for  roguery. 
The  cunning  of  this  pair  had  to  result  in  the  duping, 
not  only  of  Pierrot,  the  doctor's  faithful  but  gullible 
servant,  but  also  of  the  doctor  himself,  and  finally  of 
the  father.  The  play  could  then  end  with  the  happy 
union  of  the  lovers,  and  incidentally  with  the  mar- 
riage of  Arlequin  and  Colombine. 

Practically  all  the  plays  in  Gherardi's  collection, 
therefore,  consist  of  slightly  modified  forms  of  the 
following  four  elements  :*  (l)  The  amorosa'' s  father 
refuses  to  allow  her  to  marry  the  amoroso  because 
he  has  in  view  a  more  advantageous  match  for 
her.  (2)  Colombine,  the  amoroso^ s  servant,  invents  a 
series  of  intrigues  which  she  expects  Arlequin,  the 
amoroso^s  servant,  to  execute.  (3)  These  intrigues 


144  HOLBERG  AND 

invariably  demand  the  disguising  of  one  or  both  of 
the  ser\'ants.  (4)  Through  the  tricks  the  father  is 
duped  into  allowing,  and  sometimes  even  into  aid- 
ing unwittingly,  the  union  of  the  lovers.  The  plot 
is  never  regarded  as  anything  more  than  a  conven- 
ient string  upon  which  to  hang  the  otherwise  unre- 
lated scenes  of  horse-play  and  sheer  lawless  physi- 
cal gaiety. 

NowHolberg,  in  at  least  eight*  of  his  dramas,  uses 
all  the  terms  of  this  formula ;  in  two  others"}*  he  uses 
it  in  a  less  complete,  but  no  less  rigid,  way.  In  his 
comedies  of  character  he  has  made  it  a  convenient 
and  highly  effective  means  of  exhibiting  and  exploit- 
ing the  figures  of  his  own  invention.  In  Jean  de 
France^  for  example,  (l)  Elsebet  [amoivsa) ^w\\o  is  in 
love  with  Antonius  {amoroso) ,  has  been  promised  by 
her  father,  Jeronimus,  to  Jean,  a  Frenchified  fool. 
(2)  Marthe  (Colombine),  her  maid,  with  the  aid  of 
the  man-servant,  Espen  (Arlequin),  devises  an  in- 
trigue. (3)  The  two  servants  disguise  themselves: 
Marthe  as  a  certain  Madame  la  Fleche ;  Espen  as 
her  servant.  (4)  In  these  disguises  the  two  make  Jean 
act  so  ridiculously  that  Jeronimus  becomes  disgusted 
with  him  and  gives  his  daughter  to  her  lover,  Anto- 
nius. Although  the  Italian  formula  is  here  applied 
with  mathematical  precision,  it  produces,  in  the 
exhibition  and  discomfiture  of  the  fool,  a  ntw  and 
more  pointed  result.  Similarly,  in  the  other  plays  of 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     145 

Holberg  where  this  conventional  plot  exists  in  all 
its  tiresome  regularity,  it  always  leads  the  interest 
beyond  itself  to  the  character  for  whom  it  serves  as 
a  mere  foil. 

It  may  be  objected  that  many  other  comedies 
besides  those  of  the  commedia  deW  arte  and  those  of 
Holberg  are  constructed  on  the  same  plan .  All  Renais- 
sance comedies  are,  in  a  sense,  mere  variations  and 
adaptations  of  it.  Holberg's  direct  indebtedness  to 
the  commedia  deW arte  at  this  point  is  established  by 
the  simplicity  and  rigidity  with  which  he  makes 
its  plot  the  skeleton  of  his  plays.  Had  he  learned  to 
apply  the  formula  from  any  other  source,  he  could 
hardly  have  hit  upon  that  simple  form  of  construction 
which  is  characteristic  only  of  the  authors  of  Ghe- 
rardi's  dramas.  It  is  particularly  difficult  to  believe 
that  Holberg  learned  to  use  this  plot  from  Moliere, 
who  almost  never  employs  it  in  its  bare,  strictly  con- 
ventional form .  *  Indeed ,  Holberg' s  preference  for  the 
simple,  undeveloped  dramatic  plan  can  be  seen  from 
the  apparently  premeditated  way  in  which  he  ig- 
nores all  the  modifications  and  developments  which 
Moliere  had  given  it.  In  those  of  his  plays  which  are 
founded  on  Moliere,  he  refuses  to  follow  his  model 
when  it  deviates  from  the  conventional  form  he  has 
firmly  fixed  in  his  mind. 

In  he  Malade  ImagLnaire^  the  lovers  are  brought 
together  because  Argan,  by  feigning  death,  dis- 


146  HOLBERG  AND 

covers  that  his  daughter  Angelique  bears  him  real, 
disinterested  affection.  In  the  joy  of  this  discovery, 
he  consents  to  her  marriage  with  Cleante.  In  The 
Busy  Man,  which  follows  closely  the  plan  of  Mo- 
liere's  play,  the  lovers  are  brought  together  in  the 
old  traditional  way.  Vielgeschrey  is  duped  into  giv- 
ing unwitting  consent  to  the  union  of  the  lovers  by 
a  complicated  plot  of  disguises,  invented  by  Per- 
nille  and  executed  by  Henrich.  In  Les  Femmes  Sa- 
vantes,  the  lovers  are  enabled  to  marry  because  Ariste, 
the  common-sense  uncle,  finds  an  easy  way  of  mak- 
ing Trissotin,  the  suitor  approved  by  the  mother, 
display  his  fundamental  baseness.  He  has  merely  to 
pretend  that  the  fortune  of  Henriette's  family  has 
been  lost  and  Trissotin  withdraws  precipitately  his 
offer  of  marriage.  Ariste  needs  none  of  the  hackneyed 
tricks  of  roguish  servants.  In  The  Fortunate  Ship- 
wreck, on  the  other  hand,  a  play  clearly  written  in 
imitation  of  Les  Femmes  Savantes,  Holberg,  ignoring 
the  simple  invention  of  Ariste,  brings  his  lovers  to- 
gether by  the  old  plot  of  disguises.  Henrich  is  made 
to  appear  in  the  disguise  of  a  Dutch  sailor,  and  to 
report  the  unhappy  loss  of  Jeronimus's  wealth-laden 
ship.  Holberg's  deliberate  rejection  of  Moliere's 
changes  in  the  traditional  scheme  in  these  two  in- 
stances proves  his  preference  for  the  simple  form 
in  which  it  appears  in  the  commedia  delP  arte. 
Without  any  modifications  or  refinements,  this  fur- 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     147 

nished,  as  it  were  automatically,  enough  action  of 
a  burlesque  sort  to  please  his  audience.  When  once 
learned,  it  was  easily  adapted  to  any  set  of  charac- 
ters. Given  this  ever  available  plot,  Holberg  could  de- 
vote his  invention  to  the  things  for  which  his  com- 
edies were  primarily  written,  —  the  exhibition  and 
reformation  of  the  follies  of  contemporary  Danish 
society.  He  made  the  borrowed  plot,  moreover,  serve 
his  own  dramatic  ends.  An  intrigue  which  existed 
in  the  Italian  comedy  only  to  carry  the  audience 
with  some  show  of  logic  from  one  burst  of  gaiety 
to  the  next,  becomes  in  Holberg  a  means  of  focusing 
interest  on  the  characters. 

In  the  commedia  delV arte  this  mechanical  plot  ex- 
isted, not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  conventional 
figures  who  found  within  its  bounds  unlimited  scope 
for  their  own  characteristic  antics.  Arlequin,  Colom- 
bine,  Pierrot,  the  amoroso^  and  the  amowsa  were  dis- 
tinct comic  entities,  independent  of  any  one  play 
and  preexistent  to  all  of  them.  Holberg,  in  adapting 
the  conventional  intrigue  in  which  these  personages 
figured,  naturally  used  them  as  models  for  similar 
parts  in  his  comedies.  Each  of  the  equivalent  Dan- 
ish figures,  therefore,  derives  much  of  his  dramatic 
nature  from  his  Italian  prototype:  Henrich  from 
Arlequin,  Pernille  from  Colombine,  Arv  from  Pier- 
rot, Leander  from  the  amoroso^  and  Leonora  from  the 
amorosa. 


148  HOLBERG  AND 

Holberg's  Henrich  ought,  of  course,  to  be  re- 
garded as  standing  at  the  end  of  a  long  development 
of  a  European  comic  type.  He  descends  in  direct 
line  from  the  ingenious  slaves  of  Greek  and  Latin 
comedy,  whose  power  of  impudent  invention  he  has 
inherited  in  part  directly.  He  possesses  also  some 
of  the  keen  wit  of  Moliere's  Scapins  and  Sganarelles ; 
but  he  is  certainly  most  closely  related  to  Arlequin. 
His  schemes  for  disguise,  his  horse-play,  his  pe- 
culiar sort  of  practical  jesting,  his  clownishness, — 
indeed,  all  his  notions  of  his  duty  to  the  plot  and  to 
the  audience,  are  very  like  those  of  his  Italian  proto- 
type. 

Arlequin's  tradition  is  among  the  oldest  of  those 
to  be  found  in  Gherardi's  plays.  Neither  Pulci- 
nella,  whose  origin  is  often  thought  to  lie  in  really 
remote  antiquity,  nor  Pedrolino,  who  plays  the 
principal  servant's  part  in  some  of  the  older  col- 
lections, appears  in  Gherardi.  In  Arlequin,  Arlec- 
chino  has  become  the  most  important  and  char- 
acteristic figure  in  the  Italian  comedies  composed 
and  presented  in  Paris.  As  he  himself  says,"Fo  il 
personaggio  principale,  je  suis  celui  qui  finis  tou- 
jours  les  actes."  Actor  after  actor  took  up  the  role 
without  modifying  appreciably  its  traditional  char- 
acter. Arlequin's  conventional  costume  probably  did 
much  to  fix  his  comic  nature.  He  always  wore 
motley.  At  first  it  was  composed  of  variegated  rags, 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     149 

patched  together  at  random  ;  later,  the  bits  of  colour 
were  arranged  in  some  regular  design.  He  was, 
besides,  the  only  character  who  continued  to  wear 
a  mask  invariably,  during  the  entire  period  with 
which  we  are  here  concerned.  This  mask  was  black 
and  left  bare  the  mouth,  which  was  usually  extended 
across  the  mask  with  a  white  line,  so  that  it  seemed 
to  reach  from  ear  to  ear.  His  head  was  smooth  and 
surmounted  by  a  tiny  felt  hat.  He  often  wore  a  rab- 
bit's tail,  manifestly  as  a  sign  of  cowardice.  He  al- 
ways carried  a  flat  wooden  sword ,  sticking  out  behind 
at  an  utterly  unmilitary  angle.*  The  details  of  this 
costume  are  significant  for  our  comparative  study 
only  in  so  far  as  they  establish  the  nature  of  the  laugh- 
ter which  Arlequin  must  have  aroused.  Whether  he 
appeared  as  the  Emperor  of  the  Moon  or  as  Proteus, 
it  is  important  to  remember  that  under  the  superfi- 
cial disguise  of  the  moment  everyone  saw  distinctly 
his  motley  and  his  grinning  black  face. 

The  principal  dramatic  action  of  Arlequin,  as  of 
a  character  Mezzetin,  who  under  certain  conditions 
played  Arlequin 's  partf  in  his  efforts  to  bring  the 
lovers  together,  is  the  assumption  of  one  or  of  many 
disguises.  As  Henrich  is  similarly  interested  in  the 
lovers,  he  naturally  imitates  with  care  some  of  the 
most  successful  of  these. 

Both  Arlequin  and  Henrich  often  assume  the 
very  popular  disguise  of   a  doctor.   This  part  is 


150  HOLBERG  AND 

found  in  so  many  sorts  of  Renaissance  comedy 
that  only  close  similarities  between  the  plots  of  an 
Italian  and  a  Danish  play  in  which  the  servant  as- 
sumes the  role,  make  one  able  to  say  with  any  con- 
fidence that  Henrich  habitually  played  the  doctor 
because  Arlequin  had  done  so  before  him.  In  Les 
Bains  de  la  Porte  Saint- Bernard,  Octave's  desire  to 
marry  Angelique  is  thwarted  by  her  father,  who 
insists  that  she  marry  M.  Tricolors.  Angelique,  on 
the  advice  of  Colombine,  feigns  illness ;  then  Scara- 
mouche,  another  servant,  persuades  the  father  to 
call  in  a  famous  new  doctor,  whom  Arlequin,  also 
instructed  by  Colombine,  impersonates.  After  mak- 
ing the  usual  pedantic  quotations  of  Latin  and  trav- 
estying the  learned  consultations  of  the  profession, 
he  orders  Angelique  to  be  taken  to  the  baths  of  La 
Porte  Saint-Bernard  for  treatment.  There  she  meets 
and  marries  Octave. 

Henrich,  in  Holberg's  A  Journey  to  the  Spring, 
plays  this  doctor's  part  in  a  very  similar  situation. 
Jeronimus  wishes  his  daughter  Leonora  to  marry, 
not  her  lover,  Leander,  but  a  rich  young  fellow 
named  Leonard.  By  the  advice  of  Pernille,  Leonora 
pretends  to  be  affected  by  a  peculiar  malady,  which 
allows  her  to  express  herself  only  by  singing  arias 
from  German  opera.  Pernille  urges  the  distressed 
father  to  consult  the  renowned  Dr.  Bombastius, 
whom  Henrich  successfully  impersonates.  After  a 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE     151 

pretended  consultation  with  his  assistant,  Leander ,  in 
snatches  of  meaningless  Latin,  he  orders  the  patient 
to  be  taken  to  a  famous  spring  near  Copenhagen.* 
Leonora  is  carried  thither  on  the  eve  of  St.  John, 
when  the  healing  powers  of  the  water  are  supposed 
to  be  most  active.  There  she  meets  and  marries 
Leander. 

Holberg's  play  resembles  Les  Bains  de  la  Poiie 
Saint-Bernard  so  closely  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  was  modelled  upon  it.  In  both  a  similar  panto- 
mime is  introduced  at  the  same  place.  The  second 
act  of  Holberg's  play  is  nothing  but  a  long  interlude 
of  pantomime  suggested  by  the  tableau  at  La  Porte 
Saint-Bernard.  The  following  directions  for  action 
are  given  in  the  Italian  play:  "The  back  of  the 
stage  opens  and  discloses  the  Seine  above  La  Porte 
Saint-Bernard.  One  sees  many  covered  boats,  and 
bath  tents,  and  a  long  line  of  carriages  on  the  banks 
of  the  river.  Many  boatmen  make  abusive  gestures 
at  one  another  and  hold  the  stage  for  some  time." 
In  the  Danish  comedy,  the  scene  at  the  spring  is  in- 
troduced in  the  pantomime  which  stands  in  place  of 
a  second  act.  The  directions  are  as  follows:  "The 
stage  is  made  as  small  as  possible,  so  that  it  pre- 
sents at  first  only  a  road  to  the  spring,  on  which  are 
travelling,  not  only  horsemen,  but  also  pedestrians, 
with  pails,  pitchers,  bottles.  .  .  .  Then  the  back  of 
the  stage  is  opened,  where  the  spring  is  seen,  and 


152  HOLBERG  AND 

around  it  many  small  tents.  At  the  very  same  mo- 
ment is  heard  a  great  confused  uproar ;  some  are 
shouting,  others  are  talking,  still  others  swing  and 
crack  their  whips.  Women  are  knocked  down  in 
the  rush  to  reach  the  spring." 

This  pantomime  is  a  picture  of  a  celebration 
peculiar  to  Copenhagen  in  Holberg's  day.  It  can- 
not, therefore,  be  in  its  details  like  the  tableau  in  the 
Italian  play.  Yet  the  fact  that  the  similar  pantomimes 
come  at  the  same  place  in  both  comedies  shows  that 
one  is  the  model  for  the  other,  and  makes  it  almost 
certain  that  A  Journey  to  the  Spring  is  a  version  of 
Les  Bains  de  la  Porte  Saint- Bernard.  If  this  is  the 
relation  between  the  two  dramas,  Henrich,  on  the 
only  occasion  on  which  his  assumption  of  the  role 
of  doctor  is  utilized  to  carry  the  action  to  its  desired 
end,  is  a  copy  of  Arlequin  playing  the  same  role. 
The  follies  of  these  mock  doctors  are  always  the 
same,  wherever  they  appear,  —  an  incorrigible  eager- 
ness to  quote  meaningless  Latin,  and  a  willingness 
to  let  the  patient  die  rather  than  surrender  any  of  the 
pedantic  formalities  of  time-honoured  professional 
etiquette.  It  is,  therefore,  only  by  discovering  Henrich 
borrowing  from  Arlequin,  along  with  his  doctor  dis- 
guise, the  entire  plot  in  which  it  appears,  that  one 
can  say  with  any  confidence  that  it  was  directly 
from  him  that  the  Danish  servant  learned  how  to 
impersonate  the  conventional  stage  doctor. 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE    153 

When  Holberg  makes  Henrich  play  the  Baron  in 
Honourable  Ambition^  he  has  him  copy  one  of  Arle- 
quin's  favourite  disguises.  In  Gherardi's  collection 
he  appears  in  the  role  eight  times,*  and  in  his  ac- 
tions observes  each  time  a  stage  tradition  that  was, 
it  seems,  strictly  and  definitely  established.  The  five 
most  important  points  in  this  tradition  Henrich  fol- 
lows with  the  same  fidelity : 

L  Henrich  enters,  carried  in  a  porte-chaise,  shout- 
ing "  Hal-tet  porteurs."  He  is  no  sooner  brought  to 
a  standstill  than  he  begins  to  beg  Jeronimus's  pardon 
for  his  plainly  premeditated  ostentation. ' '  I  beg  your 
pardon,  my  dear  sir,  for  being  brought  into  your 
presence  in  this  posture."  This  was  the  most  ap- 
proved way  for  Arlequin  to  make  his  entrance  when 
playing  the  grand  gentleman.  In  Les  Originaiioc,  for 
example,  he  enters  in  a  porte-chaise  shouting  "  Arre- 
tez  done,  porteurs,  arretez.  (Sortant  de  la  chaise.) 
Pardon,  ma  belle.  Parce  qu'au  Louvre  les  marauts 
me  portent  jusques  dans  la  courd'honneur."  Arle- 
quin makes  the  same  sort  of  pretentious  entrance 
elsewhere  in  Gherardi's  plays. f 

II.  Henrich's  name.  Baron  of  the  Field  of  Pure 
Cabbage  (Baron  von  Reenkaalavalt),  is  probably 
formed  on  the  analogy  of  Arlequin  en  Baron  de  la 
Dindonniere,  and  Arlequin  en  le  Vidame  de  Co- 
tignac.  J 

III.  Henrich  amusingly  falls  out  of  the  spirit  of  his 


154  HOLBERG  AND 

disguise  back  into  his  own  nature  when  he  kisses 
Pernille,  remarking,  "That  is,  morhleu^  a  perfect- 
ment  fine  chambermaid."  This  resurgence  of  vul- 
gar taste  comes  at  equally  unfortunate  and  ridic- 
ulous moments  to  Arlequin.  In  La  Coquette^  he 
persists  in  paying  attention  to  Margot,  the  little 
sewing-girl,  when  as  the  marquis  he  ought  to  have 
been  courting  Colombine. 

IV .  Henrich  explains  grandiloquently  to  Jeroni- 
mus :  "Inasmuch  as  I  travel  in  all  sorts  of  lands, 
I  am  compelled  to  have  different  sorts  of  servants. 
I  have  a  Spanish  servant,  a  French,  a  Polish,  a 
German,  an  Italian,  and  an  English  one."  Even  in 
this  peculiarity  Henrich  seems  to  be  only  imitat- 
ing Arlequin  in  Les  Momies  (TEgypte^  whose  ser- 
vants apparently  come  from  every  part  of  France. 
"  Hola  some  one,"  he  shouts,  "Basque,  Cham- 
pagne, La  Fileur,  Poitevin,  Coupe-j arret." 

V.  Henrich  considers  that,  to  render  his  disguise 
convincing,  he  must  pretend  to  have  made  easy 
conquests  of  numerous  women.  He  ostentatiously 
gives  his  Polish  servant,  Dobre  Podolsky,  messages 
to  great  ladies.  "Pay  my  respects  to  the  Countess 
and  tell  her  I  will  visit  her  towards  evening  for  a 
game  o{  Passedix  or  Obscinite — and  if  you  can  find 
the  Mademoiselle  on  the  same  occasion  say  to  her, 
'  Voulez-vous  comment  formez  la  chaise  autrement 
perfectment,  je  parlerons  la  Contesse  de  la  Baron- 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     155 

esse  que  ditez  vous.'  But  no  one  must  hear  that."  * 
Arlequin,  before  him,  considered  the  display  of  his 
power  over  the  ladies  one  of  the  most  important 
tricks  of  his  gentleman  disguise.  "Laquais  ma- 
jor,' '  says  he,  in  Les  Momies  cPEgypte^  ' '  otherwise 
known  as  my  secretary,  I  have  left  on  my  desk 
twenty  or  thirty  billets-doux ;  go  open  them  and 
answer  them.  Laquais  minneor,  go  tell  the  widow 
that  I  shan't  come  to  see  her  at  all.  Laquais  mini- 
mus, go  to  the  old  Baroness  of  Francot — " 

These  similarities  show  clearly  that  Holberg,  in 
creating  Henrich's  disguise  as  a  baron,  followed 
closely  the  traditions  which  had  been  definitely  es- 
tablished by  Arlequin  in  similar  disguises.  With 
Henrich  once  clearly  established  in  a  traditional  role, 
Holberg  uses  him  solely  as  the  exigencies  of  his  plot 
demand.  His  disguise  becomes  merely  a  means  of 
exhibiting  the  absurd  eagerness  of  a  retired  mer- 
chant for  a  title.  Only  that  part  of  Henrich's  actions, 
therefore,  which  is  intended  as  mere  exposition  of 
the  character  of  his  disguise  is  traditional ;  the  rest 
is  new.f 

Arlequin's  ghost-disguise  was  the  one  perhaps 
best  suited  to  the  farcical  nature  of  the  commedia 
delV  arte.  Even  in  the  collection  of  Flaminio  Scala, 
a  favourite  joke  was  one  character's  mistaking  an- 
other for  a  ghost.  The  disguise,  an  excuse  for  much 
horse-play,  is  assumed  in  order  to  produce  in  the 


156  HOLBERG  AND 

victim  a  state  of  transcendent  fright,  in  which  he 
will  promise  whatever  Arlequin  wishes.*  Once  the 
victim  is  the  amoroso's  father,  whom  the  ghost  terri- 
fies into  consenting  to  his  daughter's  marriage  with 
her  lover,  and  so  fulfils  the  dramatic  destiny  of  all 
of  Arlequin's  disguises. 

At  least  three  times  Henrich  plays  Arlequin's  role 
of  half-ghost,  half-devil  with  all  the  zany's  extrav- 
agance. Twice  Henrich  assumes  the  disguise  to  ter- 
rify the  simple-minded  chore  boy,  Arv,f  into  con- 
fessing his  sins.  The  knowledge  which  Henrich  thus 
gains,  he  uses  in  The  Masquerade  as  a  kind  of  whip 
to  force  Arv  to  join  in  the  deception  of  the  father. 
In  A  Ghost  in  the  House ^  which  is  practically  a  trans- 
lation of  the  Mostellaria^  Henrich  not  only  plays  the 
slave's  part  by  telling  the  returning  father  that  his 
house  is  haunted,  but  he  makes  his  lie  circumstan- 
tial by  appearing  as  the  ghost  which  he  had  invented. 
This  bit  of  corroborative  evidence  Henrich  could 
never  have  presented  had  Holberg  not  known  of 
the  useful  disguise  of  the  Italian  clown.  Thus  it 
appears  that  three  of  Henrich 's  most  characteris- 
tic impersonations,  those  of  doctor,  gentleman,  and 
ghost,  were  probably  inspired  by  similar  inventions 
of  Arlequin. 

Henrich's  long  seizures  of  physical  farce,  always 
closely  related  to  these  disguises,  are  often  in  form, 
always  in  spirit,  faithful  copies  of  Arlequin's  lazzi.| 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE     157 

These  lazzi  were  bits  of  physical  farce  or  acrobatic 
dexterity  invented  by  the  individual  actors  and  bear- 
ing no  logical  relation  to  anything  in  the  play.  Ar- 
lequin,  who  was  always  an  acrobat  and  tumbler  of 
amazing  skill,  was  the  most  fertile  inventor  of  such 
tricks.  One  of  the  most  successful  takes  the  form  of 
a  dialogue  carried  on  with  himself.  In  L^ Empereur 
dans  la  Lune^  for  example,  he  debates  whether  he 
shall  hang  himself  or  not.  The  passage  is  written  as 
follows :  "Ho  pour  cela,  non,  mais,  vous  ne  vous en 
irez  pas — Je  m'en  irai,  vous  dis-je.  (II  tire  son  cou- 
telas  et  s'en  frappe,  puis  dit)  Ah,  me  voila  delivre 
de  cet  importun  a  present,  qu'il  n'y  a  personne, 
courons  nous  pendre.  (II  fait  semblantde  s'en  aller  et 
s'arrete  tout  court.)"  Gherardi,  in  a  note,  explains 
this  action  as  follows  :  "  It  is  to  be  observed  that  in 
this  scene  the  dashes  which  follow  a  phrase  indi- 
cate that  at  that  point  Arlequin  changes  his  voice 
and  his  gestures,  talking  now  from  one  side  of  the 
stage  now  from  the  other.  Those  who  have  wit- 
nessed this  scene  will  agree  that  it  is  one  of  the  most 
amusing  ever  played  in  the  Italian  Theatre."  *  The 
humour  consists,  not  only  in  Arlequin's  playing  the 
part  of  two  characters,  but  even  more  in  his  inflic- 
tion of  violent  physical  punishment  upon  himself. 
Without  this  element  the  comic  device  would  not 
contain  the  physical  farce  that  is  an  essential  part 
of  all  lazzi. 


158  HOLBERG  AND 

Holberg's  Henrich  plays  the  same  piece  of  har- 
lequinade more  than  once.  In  Melampe^  Sganarelle 
(as  Henrich  is  called  there)  is  to  act  as  spy  for  his 
master,  Polidorus,  in  a  mighty  mock  war  waged  for 
the  possession  of  a  lapdog.  In  order  to  know  how  to 
behave  in  case  of  capture,  he  pretends  that  he  has 
been  caught  by  one  of  the  enemy,  with  whom  he 
has  the  following  dialogue:  "Now  I  will  imagine 
that  some  one  arrests  me  as  a  spy  and  takes  me  into 
court  where  the  judge  asks  me,  'To  what  country 
do  you  belong?'  (He  sits  down  in  a  chair)  —  'I  am 
a  German,  please  Sir, '  No  that  won't  do ;  I  must  an- 
swer in  German — 'Ich  bin  a  German,  Monsieur.' 
'  No  one  cares  what  a  spy  says. '  — '  I  tell  you  I  am 
no  spy.'  — '  Who  are  you,  then  ?' — 'I  am  no  one,' 
whereupon  I  am  put  upon  the  rack.  (He  lays  him- 
self on  the  floor  and  pretends  he  is  being  tortured.) 
'  Au ,  Au ,  Au ! '  — '  Will  you  confess,  then  ? '  — '  Au , 
Au,  Au,  stop  !  I  will  confess.'  "  *  The  humour  in 
this  scene  consists,  not  merely  in  Sganarelle's  acting 
out  an  imaginary  conversation,  but,  as  in  the  ItaHan 
plays,  in  the  self-inflicted  punishment  which  pro- 
vides the  physical  farce  that  any  genuine  imitation 
of  Arlequin's  lazzi  must  possess.  This  one  piece  of 
buffoonery,  which  demands  the  combined  accom- 
plishments of  both  acrobat  and  clown,  is,  whenever 
Henrich  attempts  it,  an  undoubted  imitation  of  Ar- 
lequin's similar  trick. f 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     159 

One  of  the  favourite  disguises  of  Arlequin  was 
that  of  a  great  potentate  from  some  remote  coun- 
try.* The  only  time  that  Henrich  adopts  this  dis- 
guise, in  Don  Ranudo  di  Colibrados,  he  seems  to  be 
using  MoHere's  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme  for  his 
model ;  yet  the  physical  farce  in  which  Henrich  in- 
dulges on  this  occasion  is  a  copy  of  similar  horse- 
play by  Arlequin  when  he  assumes  this  disguise. 
His  lazzi  in  Mezzetin^  Grand  Sophy  de  Perse,  are  the 
most  characteristic.  There  M.  Groguard  is  so  much 
plagued  by  the  coquetry  of  his  wife,  that  he  is  deter- 
mined to  have  his  daughter  marry  a  Persian.  Men 
of  the  Orient  are  the  only  ones,  he  thinks,  who  still 
rule  their  wives.  Mezzetin,  in  league  with  the  girl's 
lover,  disguises  himself  as  the  acceptable  Grand 
Sophy.  In  this  role  he  makes  M.  Groguard  agree  to 
give  his  daughter  to  his  son,  who  is  none  other  than 
her  lover  appropriately  disguised.  But  it  is  Mezze- 
tin's  lazzi  while  playing  this  part  that  attract  Hen- 
rich. The  Italian  clown  satisfies  his  thirst  for  physical 
farce  by  buffeting  and  beating  poor  M.  Groguard, 
and  then  silences  the  old  man's  protests  by  explain- 
ing that  he  is  but  observing  the  conventional  Persian 
amenities. "It  [a  buifet]  is  a  Persian  compliment, 
which  means  that  you  are  entirely  excused.  When 
I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  am  your  humble 
servant,  I  shall  give  you  a  good  kick  in  the  stomach . ' ' 

In  Don  Ranudo,  the  simulated  court  fool  of  the 


160  HOLBERG  AND 

Abyssinian  Prince  mauls  Gusman  under  the  same 
pretence  that  he  is  observing  forms  of  politeness 
conventional  in  his  native  land. 

Gusman.  But,  Mr.  Interpreter,  why  are  you  pulling  my  hair  ? 
I  have  done  you  no  harm. 

Interpreter.  That  is  nothing,  my  friend.  Court  fools  in  Abys- 
sinia never  talk  without  gesturing. — That  first  gesture 
merely  means  "I  hope  we  may  become  good  friends."* 

The  introduction  of  this  same  bit  of  physical  farce 
in  the  same  situation  in  both  plays  shows  beyond 
doubt  that  the  two  are  related,  at  least  at  that  point. f 
The  physical  farce  connected  with  Arlequin's  poten- 
tate disguise  became  in  Holberg  one  of  the  most 
amusing  antics  of  the  pretended  servant  of  the  mock 
Prince  of  Abyssinia. 

Once,  at  least,  Holberg  introduces  a  still  more 
extravagant  trick  of  Gherardi's  theatre  into  one  of 
his  plays.  Yet  he  uses  it  only  for  the  delight  of  his 
audience,  and  he  disclaims  responsibility  for  the 
device  by  referring  it  explicitly  to  its  Italian  source. 
In  Witchcraft.,  a  chance  auditor  overhears  Leander, 
an  actor,  while  he  practises  the  part  of  a  tragic  role 
in  which  he  is  compelled  to  summon  up  Mephis- 
topheles.  He  thinks  that  the  actor  is  calling  the 
devil  in  earnest,  and  rushes  off  to  spread  the  news 
that  Leander  is  an  evil  wizard.  Unfortunately,  the 
public  is  confirmed  in  this  foolish  notion  by  further 
rehearsals  of  the  company.  For  the  comedy  which 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     161 

is  to  follow  the  tragedy,  the  actors  choose  a  piece 
from  the  Italian  Theatre  which  they  call  Doctor 
Baloardo.  Henrich's  principal  duty  here  seems  to 
have  been  to  manipulate  something  he  calls  a 
"  doctor-machine. "By  consulting  Gherardi's  play, 
to  which  he  and  his  master  are  evidently  referring,* 
we  find  that  this  machine  is  a  sort  of  skeleton  over 
which  the  doctor's  coat  is  hung.  Arlequin  gets 
inside  the  skeleton,  and  after  lighting  some  can- 
dles so  that  the  bones  may  be  seen  through  the  coat, 
he  moves  the  ghostly  figure  about,  to  the  great 
terror  of  everyone.  Just  as  Henrich  has  crept  into  a 
"machine"  like  Arlequin's  and  begun  to  practise 
his  terrifying  movements,  a  man  who  has  come 
expressly  to  investigate  the  stories  of  witchcraft  is 
brought  in  on  his  porte-chaise.  When  his  servants 
see  Henrich,  they  drop  their  burden  and  flee  in  wild 
fear.  The  experience  of  this  man,  embellished  in 
the  telling,  confirms  the  entire  town  in  its  belief  in 
Leander's  practice  of  the  black  art.  Holberg's  use 
of  this  extravagant  device  of  the  Italian  Theatre 
is  very  clever.  Although  he  is  willing  to  amuse  his 
audience  with  it,  he  introduces  it  into  his  play  in  a 
fashion  that  enables  him  to  show  his  own  contempt 
for  this  most  farcical  and  exaggerated  of  Arlequin's 
lazzi. 

Henrich,  by  his  adoption  of  many  of  these  con- 
ventional lazzi  of  Arlequin,  together  with  a  number 


162  HOLBERG  AND 

of  his  disguises,  became  very  like  the  Italian  zany. 
He  too  grew  to  be  both  acrobat  and  clown.  There- 
fore, even  his  tricks  that  are  in  no  sense  copies  of 
those  of  Arlequin  are  none  the  less  conceived  and 
executed  in  his  spirit.  His  imitation  of  Arlequin, 
furthermore,  made  still  other  manifestations  of  the 
physical  farce  which  permeates  the  Italian  comedy 
natural  and  convenient  property  of  Holberg's  com- 
edy. The  complicated  and  extravagant  action  of  a 
scene  of  the  commecUa  delP  arte  ended  most  natu- 
rally and  conclusively  in  an  outburst  of  horse-play. 
Clowns,  of  course,  had  to  make  their  exits  in  an 
access  of  grimacing  and  acrobatic  dexterity.  Some- 
times this  farcical  exit  was  extremely  crude.  In  Le 
Marchand  Duppe^  Mezzetin,  after  mauling  Friquet, 
simply  lets  him  run  out  ahead  of  him,  while  he  gives 
him  a  series  of  dexterous  kicks.  Even  this  device 
Holberg  does  not  scorn  to  use  on  occasion.  In ^  Ghost 
in  the  House,  Henrich  serves  the  Jew  Ephraim  in  the 
same  way  and  sends  him  out  howling  with  pain. 

Usually,  however,  the  final  action  was  more  com- 
plicated and  demanded  a  more  prolonged  romp 
about  the  stage.  The  clowns  by  a  sudden  common 
impulse  become  seized  with  an  appetite  for  violent 
physical  farce.  A  few  moments  of  the  wildest  con- 
fusion follow,  at  the  end  of  which  all  the  actors  have 
disappeared.  This  boisterous  horse-play  is  an  easy 
substitute  for  a  climax  in  the  legitimate  dramatic 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     163 

action.  In  the  plays  in  Gherardi's  collection  the 
same  time-honoured  device  for  an  exit  often  appears. 
In  Les  Chmois^  for  example,  such  a  scene  is  intro- 
duced with  the  comment,  "Cette  scene  est  aussi 
italienne."  Pierrot  surprises  Pasquariel  with  the 
soubrette."He  tries  to  hit  Pasquariel,  runs  away, 
and  hides  in  the  edge  of  a  curtain  above  the  hall 
door.  Pierrot  takes  a  pistol  and  fires;  Pasquariel 
falls  down  and  they  go  out. ' '  *  Many  times  Holberg 
ends  his  scenes  with  this  essentially  Italian  farcical 
device.  In  The  Busy  Man,  Oldfux,  the  Henrich- 
Arlequin  of  the  play,  has  angered  Vielgeschrey,  and 
the  following  action  is  indicated :  ' '  When  Viel- 
geschrey runs  after  his  club,  Oldfux  creeps  under 
the  table,  and  when  Vielgeschrey  and  Pernille  run 
to  the  kitchen  door,  Oldfux  raises  himself  with  the 
table  on  the  other  side  of  the  room,  whereupon  they 
both  run  to  him,  but  he  upsets  the  table  with  the 
papers  and  rushes  out.  "f  To  make  the  exit  of  Old- 
fux effective,  all  the  characters  abandon  themselves 
completely  to  the  physical  farce  which  makes  them 
for  the  moment  the  clowns  that  they  always  are  in 
the  commedia  delP  arte. 

Numerous  other  bits  of  horse-play  in  Holberg  are 
plainly  conceived  and  carried  out  in  the  spirit  of 
Italian  farce.  Certain  sorts  of  extravagance  can  con- 
fidently be  assigned  to  the  influence  of  the  comme- 
dia deir  arte.  In  Without  Head  or  TaiL  for  exam- 


164  HOLBERG  AND 

pie,  Haagen,  finding  Henrich  asleep,  sits  astride  of 
him  and  wakes  him  with  a  thump  of  his  hand. 
Henrich,  who  imagined  a  moment  before  that  he 
had  seen  a  ghost,  is  sure  he  is  being  ridden  by  a 
witch.  He  shrieks  for  mercy,  addressing  Haagen 
as  "Your  Grace,"  and  swears  that  he  has  never  in 
his  life  bothered  a  virtuous  woman.*  This  nonsense 
of  ghosts  and  witches,  a  favourite  convention  of  the 
Italian  Theatre,  appears  again  in  Permlle' s  Short 
Expeiience  as  a  Lady.  Henrich  has  disguised  him- 
self as  a  monk  for  the  express  purpose  of  swearing 
that  Lucie,  Pernille's  mother,  is  dead.  Just  as  he 
finishes  his  story,  Lucie  appears,  to  the  great  terror 
of  all,  who  naturally  think  she  is  her  own  ghost. 
Henrich  persists  in  saying  she  is  dead  until,  in  a 
fit  of  righteous  anger,  she  rushes  at  him  and  pulls 
off  his  disguise, ' '  so  that  he  stands  in  his  livery. ' '  f 
This  last  trick  is  certainly  borrowed  from  Ghe- 
rardi.  Arlequin's  thin  disguises  were  continually 
stripped  off  to  reveal  his  ridiculous  motley,  for 
which  Henrich's  livery  was  but  a  poor  equivalent. 
These  examples  are  fairly  representative  of  the 
large  number  of  lazzi  which  Holberg  clearly  in- 
vented on  models  furnished  by  the  commedia  deW 
arte.  Henrich  is  a  copy  of  Arlequin,  therefore,  in 
the  tricks  of  his  own  which  he  borrowed  from  his 
Italian  prototype,  as  well  as  in  the  spirit  of  phys- 
ical farce  which  he  has  communicated  to  his  fellows 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     165 

in  the  dramatic  action.  If  Henrich  owes  to  Arlequin 
not  only  this  incorrigible  propensity  for  physical 
farce,  but,  as  I  have  indicated,  both  his  part  in  the 
conventional  plot  and  all  the  traditions  of  many  of 
his  disguises,  he  owes  him  by  far  the  greater  part 
of  his  dramatic  nature. 

Henrich  is  like  Arlequin,  however,  in  another 
important  feature:  he  bears  the  same  relation  to 
Pernille  that  Arlequin  does  to  Colombine.  Arlequin 
loves  Colombine,  and  is  persuaded  to  play  his  im- 
portant part  in  the  intrigue  only  because  he  hopes 
thereby  to  win  her.  In  La  Fille  de  Bon  Sens  he  ex- 
plains his  position  very  clearly:  "My  master  has 
promised  me  that  if  I  do  well  what  he  has  ordered 
me  to  do,  he  will  let  me  marry  Colombine,  whom  I 
love  to  distraction.  O  happy  Arlequin!  happy  Arle- 
quin! "  *  In  Le  Divorce^  Arlequin,  having  received 
a  similar  promise,  is  ready  to  perform  fifty  deceitful 
tricks  {fourberies)  if  he  can  but  marry  Colombine. 
He  could  do  little,  however,  despite  his  willingness, 
his  cleverness  in  impersonation,  and  his  physical 
agility,  without  her  cooperation.  She  is  the  more 
quick-witted  of  the  two,  and  so  invariably  devises 
and  directs  the  plot  which  is  to  accomplish  her  mis- 
tress's marriage  with  the  amoroso.  Henrich  must, 
nevertheless,  perform  what  she  has  planned.  In  some 
of  Gherardi's  plays  her  direction  is  particularly  evi- 
dent.f  She  not  only  invents  all  the  disguises  and  pre- 


166  HOLBERG  AND 

tences,  and  anticipates  the  results,  but  she  is  very- 
careful  to  explain  in  detail  to  all  the  characters  just 
what  they  must  do.  When  once  the  plot  is  started, 
she  fairly  compels  its  success.  Her  impudence  and 
pert  self-assurance  are  equal  to  all  difficulties.  When 
she  has  brought  her  plot  to  a  successful  issue,  she 
and  Arlequin  follow  the  example  of  their  master 
and  mistress,  and  marry.*  Sometimes  the  marriage 
has  been  expected  from  the  first;  at  other  times  it 
comes  as  a  sudden  inspiration  to  the  servants  and 
a  surprise  to  the  spectators.  The  agreement  is  usu- 
ally concluded  in  a  purely  perfunctory  way.  "Mon- 
sieur Hymen,"  says  Arlequin,  at  the  very  end  of 
Le  Divorce,  "that  is  n't  all,  you  have  just  broken  off 
a  match,  but  it  is  now  your  duty  to  make  another 
between  Colombine  and  me."  And  Colombine  an- 
swers: "Oh,  very  gladly!  on  condition  that  we  be 
unmarried  at  the  end  of  a  year." 

Arlequin  and  Colombine  appear  once  in  Holberg 
as  it  were  in  their  own  persons.  In  The  Invisible 
Lovers,  Leander's  servant  is  called  Arlequin,  and 
the  latter 's  beloved,  Colombine.  Yet  here  the  man- 
servant, strangely  enough,  is  less  an  Italian  zany 
than  in  almost  any  other  of  Holberg' s  plays.  The 
comedy  is  known  to  be  the  dramatization  of  an 
incident  from  Scarron's  Roman  Comiqiie.  All  the  ri- 
diculous situations  in  which  this  Arlequin  involves 
himself  are  the  result  of  his  attempts  to  apply  his 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE     167 

master's  canons  of  romantic  love.  He  is  not  a  pro- 
lific trickster  and  clever  acrobat  like  the  Italian  Ar- 
lecchino.  Like  Scarron's  immortal  Jodelet,  whom 
he  may  be  definitely  imitating,  he  is  much  more 
a  Spanish  gmcioso^  a  figure  in  Spanish  comedy  who 
stood  for  common  sense,  vulgar  self-interest,  and 
cowardly  egotism.  The  gracioso  became  humorous 
through  the  violent  contrast  he  offered  to  the  heroic 
and  high-flown  sentiments  of  the  other  characters. 
Sancho  Panza  is  the  most  famous  member  of  the 
family  of  graciosos  to  which  this  Arlequin  of  Hol- 
berg,  as  well  as  his  more  famous  Chilian,  is  related. 

In  the  plays,  however,  where  Holberg's  servants 
are  called  Henrich  and  Pernille,  they  generally  as- 
sume the  conventional  Arlequin-Colombine  relation. 
Pernille,  like  Colombine,  is  the  inventor  and  man- 
ager of  the  plot  *  which  she  makes  her  lover,  Henrich , 
execute.  Later,  when  her  intrigue  has  been  success- 
ful in  bringing  the  lovers  together,  she  and  Henrich 
often  either  plainly  imply  or  abruptly  declare  their 
intention  of  marrying  each  other  as  a  reward,  usu- 
ally self-bestowed,  for  their  part  in  the  intrigue. f 

In  The  Foi-tuimte  Shipwreck  all  of  these  points  in 
the  relations  of  Pernille  to  Henrich  exist.  She  invents 
the  plot.  "I  have  thought  about  tricks,"  she  says, 

until  the  blood  spins  around  in  my  head  like  a 
top.  Finally  I  have  hit  upon  the  following,  which 
I  think  is  going  to  succeed."  Then  she  goes  on  to 


168  HOLBERG  AND 

describe  just  what  is  to  happen.  Besides,  she  care- 
fully explains  the  parts  that  she  wishes  the  various 
characters  to  play:  "I  want  Henrich  to  pass  him- 
self oft"  for  a  sailor,  to  come  to  Jeronimus  and  make 
him  think  that  his  ship  has  been  wrecked."  When 
this  intrigue  has  been  carried  to  a  successful  issue, 
amid  general  rejoicing,  there  is  a  reference  to  the 
coming  marriage  of  Henrich  and  Pernille.  "But 
where,"  asks  Pernille,  "did  you  learn  Dutch?" 
Henrich  replies,  "I  know  more  than  you  can  im- 
agine; when  we  are  married,  I  shall  show  you  still 
more. 

In  many  other  comedies,  all  these  characteristic 
features  of  the  relation  of  Arlequin  to  Colombine 
are  found  existing  in  the  similar  relation  of  Henrich 
to  Pernille.  Henrich,  therefore,  proves  to  have  still 
another  of  Arlequin's  characteristics,  while  Pernille 
in  all  the  essentials  of  her  role  proves  to  be  modelled 
on  Colombine. 

Legrelle  naturally  asserts  that  the  relation  of  Hen- 
rich and  Pernille  is  founded  upon  the  similar  one 
that  exists  between  the  servants  in  Moliere's  plays. 
He  believes  it  is  particularly  like  that  between  Ma- 
rinette and  Gros-Rene  in  Le  Depif  Amoureux^  and 
Covielle  and  Nicole  in  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme. 
Yet  Legrelle  himself  says  that  the  dramatic  purpose 
of  the  relation  between  these  servants  is  to  show 
"  un  amour  ressenti  et  partage  par  les  personnes 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     169 

d'un  rang  inferieur,  et  qui  se  developpe  a  cote  de 
I'amour  heroique  des  personnages  principaux."  Its 
dramatic  value  depends  on  the  ' '  antithese  ingeni- 
euse  et  comique,"  a  contrast  which  he  says,  quite 
properly,  was  developed  with  particular  success  in 
Spanish  comedy.*  Moliere,  in  other  words,  finds  his 
servants  of  dramatic  value  chiefly  because  in  their 
love-dialogues  and  love-quarrels  they  oflTer  a  humor- 
ous contrast  to  the  more  dignified  love-episodes  of 
their  master  and  mistress.  Henrich  and  Pernille  play 
parts  utterly  unlike  these.  Holberg  almost  never 
devotes  a  line  to  love-dialogues  either  of  the  ser- 
vants or  even  of  Leander  and  Leonora  themselves. 
The  servants'  love-episode  consists  of  nothing  but 
a  final  abrupt  decision  to  marry.  MoHere's  servants 
are  not  primarily  the  clever,  intriguing  agents  of 
the  author  in  conducting  his  plot.  Marinette  has  not 
Pernille's  inexhaustible  fund  of  farcical  invention. 
Gros-Rene  makes  no  attempt  to  rival  Henrich 's 
clownish  lazzi  and  extravagant  disguises.  Mo- 
Here's  servants  are  in  certain  points  more  closely 
related  to  Spanish  than  to  Italian  comedy.  Even 
such  of  their  characteristics  as  are  derived  from  the 
commedia  deW  arte  have  developed  into  something 
original. 

Holberg's  servants,  on  the  other  hand,  are  Danish 
equivalents  of  the  Italian  figures.  Henrich  displays 
Arlequin's  unbounded  devotion  to  hismaster,  which 


170  HOLBERG  AND 

in  both  of  them  is  a  relic  of  the  Latin  slave's  nature. 
He  has  the  zany's  irrepressible  delight  in  playing 
tricks,  in  disguise,  in  elaborate  pretence,  in  horse- 
play ;  the  zany's  impudence  in  carrying  out  the  com- 
plicated intrigues  which  the  cleverer  maid-servant 
invents. 

But  Holberg  wrote  with  his  eye  too  intent  upon 
Danish  reality  to  be  satisfied  with  drawing  over 
and  over  again  a  figure  all  of  whose  characteris- 
tics were  borrowed  and  artificial.  Henrich  from  the 
first  shows  the  result  of  contact  with  Danish  life.* 
In  a  number  of  plays  he  has  become  something 
far  other  than  the  impudent  trickster  that  Arle- 
quin  always  is.  In  The  Political  Tinker^  The  Fickle- 
minded  Woman^  and  The  Lying-in  Chamber^  he 
resembles  much  more  the  Jacob  oi  Erasmus  Monta- 
nus^  whose  sole  education  has  been  his  own  observa- 
tion. He  expresses  the  amusement  and  astonishment 
of  a  level-headed  young  man,  full  of  homespun  wis- 
dom, at  the  folHes  and  contradictions  of  life.  He  may 
exploit  the  fools  a  little  for  his  own  delight,  but  he 
seems  most  inclined  to  reason  and  comments  with 
the  wit  and  skepticism  of  a  peasant's  sturdy  com- 
mon sense.  There  is  an  irony  unknown  to  Arlequin 
in  this  Henrich.  He  describes,  for  example,  the 
transactions  of  the  "Collegium  Politicum"  as  fol- 
lows :  "  I  heard  well  enough  that  they  deposed  em- 
perors, kings  and  kurfiirsts  and  put  others  in  their 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     171 

places.  Now  they  talked  of  tariffs,  now  of  taxes,  now 
of  Hamburg's  development  and  the  advancement 
of  trade.  Now  they  consulted  books,  and  now  they 
peeked  at  the  map.  Richard  Brushmaker  sat  with 
a  toothpick  in  his  hand,  so  I  believe  that  he  must 
be  the  secretary  of  the  council."*  He  cannot  see 
why  the  council  has  been  so  foolish  as  to  elevate  his 
master,  the  tinker,  to  the  office  of  mayor,  but  he  is 
keen  enough  to  see  the  possibilities  of  the  office  he 
shall  hold, — that  of  messenger  to  the  council.  He 
feels  that  he  may  count  on  two  or  three  hundred 
thaler  a  year  from  people  who  will  be  eager  for 
audiences  with  his  master.  He  will  take  delight  in 
this  money,  not  because  he  is  greedy,  but  because 
he  wants  to  show  the  world  that  he  understands 
his  office.  Troels,  in  The  Lying-in  Chamber^  makes 
similar  ironic  comment  on  events.  When  the  play 
opens,  he  has  just  been  to  the  houses  of  ninety- 
three  women  with  the  news  that  his  mistress  has 
given  birth  to  a  daughter,  a  great  miracle  that  will 
set  the  whole  town  in  an  uproar.  He  comments  sa- 
tirically on  social  fashions  of  his  day.  He  is  amazed 
at  the  custom  that  compels  a  widow,  with  a  mod- 
est competence,  to  spend  so  much  money  in  giv- 
ing her  husband  an  honourable  burial  that  she  will 
have  nothing  left  upon  which  to  live  an  honour- 
able life.  But  Troels  is  particularly  amused  at  his 
master's  apparently  groundless  suspicions  of  his 


172  HOLBERG  AND 

wife,  and  teases  and  tortures  him  with  insinuations, 
the  implication  of  which  he  always  promptly  denies, 
so  that  the  poor  old  man  cannot  tell  whether  the  boy 
is  merely  stupid  or  really  malicious.  These  Henrichs 
have  given  up  the  restless  invention  of  interminable 
tricks  and  intrigues  long  enough  to  display  an  un- 
expected, home-bred  wisdom.  They  are  no  longer 
an  impossible  mixture  of  pert  lacquey  and  unscru- 
pulous slave.  They  have  become  representatives  of 
the  homely  shrewdness  of  the  Danish  peasantry. 

In  The  Masquerade^  Henrich,  in  addition  to  mak- 
ing satirical  comments  on  life,  speaks  in  defence  and 
explanation  of  his  own  character.  In  his  words  the 
innate  courage  of  the  better  sort  of  Danish  peasant 
has  its  first  voice.  Although  his  condition  has  obvi- 
ous similarities  with  that  of  Jeppe  of  the  Hill,  the 
fate  that  reduced  the  feeble-willed  Jeppe  to  a  kind 
of  battered  submission  has  stimulated  the  stronger 
young  Henrich  to  whimsical  revolt.  "We  are  born 
in  poverty,"  he  says, "reared  in  hunger,  and  then 
beaten  a  half-score  of  years  by  a  crabbed  schoolmas- 
ter ;  so  passes  all  our  childhood.  When  we  grow  up, 
we  have  to  moil  and  toil  to  keep  from  dying  of 
starvation  before  our  time."  The  recreation,  the  joy 
that  such  souls  crave  is  modest  and  simple:  it  is 
motion.  The  physical  elation  that  comes  from  danc- 
ing, good  boisterous  dancing,  has  the  power  to  drive 
away  despair  and  even  sickness  because  it  is  joyful 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     173 

motion.  "And  I  have  wished,"  adds  Henrich,  with 
a  humour  not  lacking  in  profundity,"  that  we  could 
take  the  coachman  and  horses  into  the  masquerade 
with  us,  so  that  the  wretched  beasts  also  could  have 
some  recreation  and  a  few  good  times  among  so 
many  hard  days."*  The  Henrich  who  talks  in  this 
way  is  the  same  one  who  sees  the  humour  in  old 
men  who  stagger  home  drunk  from  the  tavern  yet 
criticise  with  lofty  morality  the  flightier  but  more 
venial  dissipations  of  the  young  ;  and  the  same  one 
who  still  has  enough  of  Arlequin's  clownishness 
to  parade  as  a  ghost  before  the  easily  terrified  Arv. 
Never  belying  his  antecedents,  never  quite  forget- 
ting his  inherited  characteristics,  Henrich  at  his 
best  has  grown  to  the  full  stature  of  a  national  type. 
He  has  become  the  expression  of  a  satirical  com- 
mon sense,  of  a  profound  humour,  distinctively  Hol- 
berg's  own. 

Pernille's  development  is,  in  general,  so  similar 
to  that  of  Henrich  that  it  need  not  be  traced  in  de- 
tail. Abandoning  completely  the  pertness  of  Colom- 
bine,  the  mere  intriguer,  she  becomes  a  character, 
less  clever,  perhaps,  but  infinitely  more  real.  The 
plot  that  she  invents  and  carries  to  triumphant  con- 
clusion in  The  Busy  Man^  for  example,  is  absurdly 
complicated  and  artificial.  Yet  her  talk  is  so  per- 
sistently concerned  with  the  familiar  matters  of  the 
household  that  her  actions  assume  a  certain  air 


174  HOLBERG  AND 

of  plausibility.  When  she  wants  to  divert  Vielge- 
schrey's  attention  from  a  too  close  scrutiny  of  her  ex- 
travagant intrigues,  she  tells  him  that  the  other  hens 
are  pecking  his  favourite  little  black  hen  to  death,  or 
she  remarks :  "  The  other  day  I  found  my  master's 
catalogue  on  a  shelf  above  his  linen  clothes  in  the 
kitchen ;  the  wretched  cook  had  got  hold  of  it  and 
was  going  to  fry  salmon  on  it. "  *  Talk  about  hens 
and  fried  salmon  changes  once  for  all  a  conventional 
Jemme  d^  intrigue  into  a  very  real  member  of  a  homely 
household.  In  others  of  Holberg's  domestic  comedies, 
Pernille's  inherited  artificiality  is  similarly  trans- 
formed into  a  robust  reality.  Her  position  in  the 
family  is  always  impossible  to  comprehend ;  her 
talk,  however,  has  so  much  homely  verisimilitude 
that  it  often  beguiles  one  into  belief,  not  only  in  her, 
but  in  the  situations  of  which  she  is  the  centre. 

In  the  figure  of  Arv  f  there  exists  the  same  mix- 
ture of  tradition  and  independent  invention  that  we 
have  found  in  Henrich.  He  is  always  a  slow-wit- 
ted boy,  who  has  never  seen  the  world  beyond  his 
own  village.  His  superstition,  timidity,  and  stupidity 
make  him  an  excellent  foil  and  butt  for  the  quick- 
witted, worldly-wise  Henrich.  He  seems  so  clearly 
to  reek  of  the  soil  that  one  thinks  of  him  as  a  purely 
Danish  figure ;  yet  he  stands  at  the  end  of  a  comic 
tradition  of  the  commedia  deW  arte.  A  figure  like 
him,  half  clown,  half  stupid  peasant,  is  almost  as 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     175 

old  as  the  commedia  deWarte  itself.  The  type  prob- 
ably appeared  for  the  first  time  in  1570,  in  the  troupe 
of  a  certain  Juan  Ganassa,  under  a  name  to  which 
Leoncavallo's  opera  has  given  universal  currency, 
Pagliaccio.  He  was  a  sort  of  variation  of  Pulcinella, 
but  was,  unlike  him,  stupid,  slow,  and  awkward.  In 
the  company  of  the  Gelosi  he  has  become  Pedro- 
lino,*  who  in  Scala's  collection  appears  as  the  valet 
of  Pantalone.  He  is  often  charged  with  watching  his 
master's  wife  or  daughter,  but  is  either  outwitted 
by  the  other  servants,  or  stupidly  falls  asleep  at  his 
post,  or  gets  drunk  with  the  Capitano  Spavento  and 
his  servant.  During  the  seventeenth  century,  how- 
ever, this  figure  does  not  appear  in  the  companies 
of  Italian  comedians  in  Paris.  Arlequin  in  the  mean 
time  having  adopted  many  of  his  stupid  ways,  con- 
tinually allowed  his  attempts  at  roguery  to  be  foiled 
by  his  own  stupidity,  until  about  the  year  1670, 
when  Dominique  Biancolelli,  the  famous  Arlequin 
of  the  Italians  in  Paris,  banished  this  stupidity  from 
his  nature.  He  had  discovered  that  the  French  pub- 
lic found  silly  simplicity  out  of  place  in  a  character 
whom  they  wanted  first  of  all  to  be  quick-witted. 
But  Arlequin 's  open-mouthed  inanity  offered  too 
many  obvious  chances  for  successful  y«?wx  de  theatre 
to  be  entirely  discarded.  The  Italian  actor  Giraton 
invented,  therefore,  the  figure  Pierrot f  to  inherit 
the  stupidity  which  Arlequin  had  abandoned.  The 


176  HOLBERG  AND 

invention  amounted  to  little  more  than  a  revival* 
of  Pagliaccio-Pedrolino  with  all  his  characteristic 
traits. 

In  Gherardi's  plays  Pierrot  appears  very  fre- 
quently. He  is  occasionally  an  independent  farmer 
living  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city,  f  but  usu- 
ally he  is  the  servant  either  of  Pantalone  or  of  the 
doctor.  J  This  role  he  plays  with  the  witlessness  of 
a  country  lout."  Monsieur,"  he  says,  with  a  kind 
of  helpless  frankness,"  you  know  that  in  our  family 
we  are  all  fools  from  father  to  son.  My  father  was 
the  first  swine  of  his  time  and  in  me  his  nature  sur- 
vives." §  His  ignorance,  he  feels,  is  a  thing  to  boast 
of.  "Ah,  father  and  mother!"  he  cries,  "how  I 
thank  you  for  not  having  made  me  learn  to  read ! 
God  knows  that  books  and  learning  produce  nothing 
but  fools. "II 

His  costume,  as  it  appears  in  various  descrip- 
tions and  pictures,  carries  out  to  perfection  the  idea  - 
of  a  country  bumpkin.  His  clothes,  though  appar- 
ently white,  have  all  the  marks  of  ill-made  home- 
spun ;  his  trousers  extend  only  to  the  middle  of  his 
calves ;  his  blouse  is  bound  with  a  loose  belt ;  and 
his  broad  hat  slouches  down  over  his  ears.  The 
silly  grin  which  always  disfigures  his  face  suits  ad- 
mirably the  humour  which  he  generally  contributes 
to  the  comedy.  Colombine  asks  Pierrot  with  assumed 
ingenuousness  if  he  can  tell  her  what  marriage  is. 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     177 

Pierrot.  Surely  nothing  is  easier — you  could  never  have  found 
a  better  question  to  ask  me. 

Colombine.  Well,  then? 

Pierrot.  It  is  like,  for  example,  a  thing  when  one  is  together. 
Your  father — married  —  your  mother;  that  resulted  in  their 
being  two.  And  in  the  same  way  your  grandfather — for  his 
part — Nature — one  doesn't  know  how  to  explain  such  a 
mixed-up  mess.* 

In  spite  of  occasional  gleams  of  mother  wit,  the  slow 
boy  is  no  match  for  the  clever  schemes  of  Arlequin 
or  Mezzetin,  directed  against  his  master.  Arlequin 
finds  him  ridiculously  easy  to  dupe  or  to  terrify  into 
stupidity.  Pierrot,  therefore,  in  spite  of  his  dog-like 
devotion  to  Pantalone,  is  usually  made  an  unwilling 
confederate  of  the  tricksters  in  their  machinations. 
Arv  is  clearly  a  child  of  this  tradition.  Henrich's 
description  of  him  defines  his  character  as  clearly 
as  did  Pierrot's  tell-tale  clothes.  "The  chore  boy 
\^gaards-karl^  has  a  position  in  the  household  only 
a  little  higher  than  the  watchdog,"  says  Henrich. 
' '  In  the  last  and  lowest  class  is  the  watchdog ;  in 
the  next,  the  chore  boy;  in  the  third,  the  cook  ;  — 
and  in  the  highest  class,  the  lacquey.  "Arv,  like  Pier- 
rot, is  funny  only  because  he  is  stupid  and  simple- 
minded.  He  seems  never  to  have  left  the  estate  of 
which  he  is  a  definite  part,  while  Henrich  has  seen 
life  both  at  home  and  abroad,  in  the  company  of 
his  young  master.  Arv's  honest  stupidity  is  sharply 


178  HOLBERG  AND 

contrasted  with  the  worldly  wisdom  of  the  confident 
and  cosmopolitan  Henrich. 

The  manifestations  of  this  stupidity  are  mul- 
tifarious. He  has,  for  example,  the  same  kind  of 
difficulty  as  Pierrot  in  conveying  both  delicately 
and  lucidly  the  point  of  a  disagreeable  message. 
In  Jean  de  France  he  knows  that  his  master  will 
surely  be  arrested  if  he  goes  home ;  yet  he  cannot 
bring  himself  to  say  that  everything  is  not  right, 
although  the  perplexed  way  in  which  he  scratches 
his  head  shows  Jean  immediately  that  he  is  seek- 
ing a  graceful  way  of  breaking  bad  news.  Finally, 
after  he  has  tried  repeatedly  to  avoid  the  difficulty 
by  running  away,  he  is  frightened  into  blurting  out : 
"Everything  is  really  all  right,  but  there  is  some- 
thing mighty  bad  about  it  too."  In  the  next  scene 
his  folly  is  more  exaggerated  and  conventional. 
Like  Scapin  in  Les  Fourberies,  he  hides  Jean  in  a 
sack  and  tells  the  gambler  who  is  seeking  him  that 
the  suspicious  looking  bundle  contains  butter,  can- 
dles, lace,  and  vegetables.  Then  when  none  of  his 
assertions  is  believed,  he  shouts  in  terror:  "But  it 
really  is  n't  Hans  Frandsen,  Monsieur,  I  can  give 
my  oath  on  that,  for  how  in  the  world  should  he  ever 
get  into  a  sack  ?  "  *  Of  course,  he  continually  mis- 
understands with  a  stupidity  too  wilful  to  be  really 
funny.  When  Leander  asks  him  whether  "papa" 
ate  at  home  to-day,  Arv  replies, ' '  He  ate  in  his  cage 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     179 

as  usual."  "You  fool!"  shouts  Leander  in  reply, 
' '  I  asked  about  my  father,  not  about  the  popinjay. " 
Pierrot  might  have  been  guilty  of  all  these  fatui- 
ties, for  no  one  of  them  fixes  at  all  distinctly  Arv's 
social  and  domestic  position.  Like  Pierrot's  actions, 
they  are  tricks  of  a  figure  whose  sole  dramatic  duty 
is  to  be  consistently  witless.  But  Holberg  was  not  sat- 
isfied to  let  Arv  remain  a  mere  conventional  clown. 
He  made  him  talk  and  act  like  the  peasant  boys 
he  had  seen  slouching  round  the  houses  and  barn- 
yards of  Danish  farms.  Arv,  made  human  by  this 
contact  with  a  real  chore  boy,  shows  only  such 
stupidity  as  is  consistent  with  this  Danish  nature. 
He  has,  for  example,  indignant  suspicion  of  every- 
thing that  he  cannot  understand.  He  believes  that 
Jean  de  France's  incomprehensible  French  contains 
insults.  "He  gives  me  a  dog's  name  and  calls 
me  Garsong,"  he  says.  "If  he  calls  me  Garsong 
again,  I  am  certainly  going  to  answer,  '  Yes,  Fido.' 
For  I  was  christened  Arv  Andersen  and  can  prove 
it  by  the  church-book.  But  what  can  I  do  when 
his  mother  lets  him  call  her  'Mare,'  which  is  still 
worse."*  Pierrot's  flashes  of  mother  wit  have  a 
touch  of  sauciness.  Arv's  substitute  for  this  is  a  sol- 
emn sententiousness,  not  unsuited  to  his  character. 
For  example,  in  A  Journey  to  the  Springs  he  realizes 
well  enough  what  has  happened  when  Leonora  does 
not  return  with  her  doctor  from  the  spring  during 


180  HOLBERG  AND 

the  night.  Yet  he  tries  to  reassure  the  father  in  gen- 
eraHties,  which  sound  like  those  vague  aphorisms 
which  are  often  the  sum  of  a  peasant's  wisdom. 

Jlrv.  It  is  possible  that  there  are  certain  sicknesses  which  are 
cured  best  by  night,  and  certain  doctors  who  do  not  practise 
before  the  sun  goes  do^vn. 

Jeronimus.  That  is  true.  When  a  man  is  struck  with  a  sudden 
weakness,  like  a  fainting  fit  at  night,  he  must  have  a  doctor, 
but  in  long-continued  illnesses  the  patients  are  allowed  to  sleep 
at  night. 

£rv.  O  sir  !  doctors  underetand  that  best.* 

His  conversation  and  his  actions,  furthermore,  indi- 
cate continually  his  definite  place  in  the  household. 
What  did  we  have  for  dinner  ? ' '  asks  Henrich  in 
Masquerades. 

Arv.  Sweet  porridge  and  dried  codfish. 

Henrich.  You  saved  some  for  me,  did  n't  you  ? 

Arv.  No,  we  gave  your  share  to  Soldan  the  dog,  because  our 
master  says  that  anyone  who  can't  come  to  meals  in  time, 
shall  not  have  anything  to  eat.  If  you  can  get  it  from  Soldan 
again,  you  are  welcome  to  it.t 

Bits  of  homely  conversation  of  this  sort  occur  often 
enough  to  make  Arv's  position  in  the  family  seem 
perfectly  natural.  A  scene  like  the  one  in  Christmas 
Eve,X  already  quoted  in  another  connection,  serves 
the  same  purpose.  There  Arv  comes  in  from  the 
barn  to  play  his  loutish  part  in  the  Christmas  cele- 
bration. His  chief  delight,  of  course,  is  to  imperson- 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE     181 

ate  the  traditional  Christmas  goat.  He  comes  bounc- 
ing in,  covered  with  a  sheet  from  which  two  horns 
protrude,  and  successfully  terrifies  the  other  ser- 
vants. He  feels  so  much  anxiety,  however,  over  Per- 
nille's  extravagant  fear  that  he  takes  off  his  sheet 
to  assure  her  that  it  is  he  who  is  impersonating 
the  beast.  The  schoolmaster  a  little  later  makes 
Arv's  stupidity  serve  as  a  foil  to  the  children's 
crammed  cleverness.  At  every  moment  we  are  made 
to  see  the  boy  playing  a  stupid  servant's  charac- 
teristic part  in  a  family  holiday. 

The  conventional  and  artificial  in  Pierrot,  thus 
brought  into  vital  contact  with  Danish  reality,  have 
become  in  Arv  natural  and  native.  He,  like  Henrich 
and  Pernille,  does  much  to  create  the  atmosphere 
of  a  simple  Danish  household.  The  servants,  it  may 
be  said,  contribute  most  to  the  establishment  of 
that  middle-class  family  life  which  is  peculiar  to 
Holberg's  domestic  comedies  of  character.  In  these 
three  figures  Holberg  has  given  the  essentially 
popular  and  extempore  figures  of  Arlequin,  Colom- 
bine,  and  Pierrot  the  only  permanent  literary  form 
that  they  have  received. 

Holberg  first  took  the  servants  into  his  plays,  it 
must  be  remembered,  only  because  he  found  the 
plots  to  which  they  were  essential  extremely  useful 
in  his  hurried  writing  of  comedy  of  character.  Two 
more  figures  who  are  vital  parts  of  the  Italian  plot. 


182  HOLBERG  AND 

the  amoroso  and  the  amorosa^  have  counterparts  in 
Holberg's  Leander  and  Leonora.  They  are  like  their 
Italian  prototypes  chiefly  because  they  are  mere 
pawns  in  similar  games.*  They  love  each  other  only 
to  give  the  servants  an  excuse  for  intrigue.  Yet  they 
are  not  for  that  reason,  as  Legrelle  asserts,  infinitely 
feeble  copies  of  Moliere's  lovers.  Such  an  assump- 
tion is  unfair  to  Holberg.  Moliere  knew  how  to  por- 
tray skilfully  and  sympathetically  the  mutual  hopes 
and  fears  of  young  lovers.  He  highl}^  individualizes 
each  couple  and  their  love  story.  Holberg  knew  that 
he  could  not  imitate  Moliere  successfully  in  draw- 
ing characters  of  this  sort.  Furthermore,  he  under- 
stood his  artistic  limitations  w^ell  enough  to  make 
no  attempt  to  introduce  into  his  portrayal  of  the 
wooden  Italian  lovers  either  originality  or  diversity. 
They  remain  in  his  plays  the  perfunctory  figures  of 
the  commedia  deW  arte  about  whose  affairs  all  the 
other  persons  are  actively  concerned.  Leander  and 
Leonora  owe  their  bare  existence  to  the  amoroso 
and  the  amorosa ;  they  possess  little  character  to  owe 
to  any  literary  tradition. 

None  of  these  Danish  descendants  of  figures  of 
the  commedia  deW  arte  develop  at  all  logically  dur- 
ing the  course  of  the  play.  Their  rigid  natures  are 
never  swerved  from  their  predestined  courses  by 
any  clash  with  men  or  events.  Furthermore,  Hen- 
rich,  Pernille,  and  the  rest  are  practically  the  same 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     183 

persons  in  every  play  in  which  they  appear.  This 
complete  lack  of  development  and  versatility  is  in- 
evitable in  legitimate  descendants  of  figures  whose 
unchanging  masks  and  costumes  fixed  irrevocably 
their  humorous  nature.  The  reappearance  in  play 
after  play  of  favourite  characters,  once  accepted  by 
the  audience  as  a  tradition,  becomes  in  itself  a 
source  of  delight.  Holberg,  able  to  take  for  granted 
the  immediate  sympathy  of  his  audience  for  half  of 
his  personages,  could  devote  his  dramatic  effort  to 
the  invention  of  situations  and  to  the  exposition 
of  the  nature  of  the  central  figure.  His  use  of  mask- 
like figures  was  dramatic  economy.  By  employing 
them,  he  directed  the  eyes  of  his  audiences  more 
surely  and  searchingly  upon  the  central  character, 
who  absorbed  most  of  his  own  interest. 

Complete  hsts  of  comic  details  which  Holberg 
borrowed  from  Gherardi's  plays  have  been  more 
than  once  carefully  compiled.*  Of  such  devices, 
only  those  which  indicate  structural  similarities  be- 
tween the  two  comic  systems  are  of  any  real  impor- 
tance. The  spirit  of  much  of  Holberg's  drama  is  like 
the  commedia  deW  arte  because  it  has  inherited  the 
latter 's  traditions  of  humour  which  are  peculiarly 
suited  to  masked  figures.  Arlequin  and  Mezzetin,  for 
example,  frequently  appear  as  various  gods  of  clas- 
sical antiquity.  In  these  parts  they  are  invariably  in 
the  grip,  as  it  were,  of  crude  stage  machinery  which 


184  HOLBERG  AND 

was  obviously  planned  to  imitate  the  similar  effects 
of  the  contemporary  opera.  Jupiter  is  drawn  up 
through  the  roof  by  a  pulley,  or  Proteus  and  Glaucus 
flounder  on  the  stage  which  is  supposed  to  represent 
the  ocean.*  Whatever  gods  the  clowns  are  intended 
to  be,  their  Olympian  insignia  are  invariably  only 
a  few  superficial  marks  of  identification  pasted  on 
their  motley.  The  clown  always  grins  incorrigibly 
through  the  disguise  of  the  god  he  is  trying  to 
represent  at  the  moment. 

Holberg  introduces  the  gods  into  his  plays,  at 
least  once,  entirely  in  the  manner  of  the  commedia 
deir  arte.  In  fact,  he  constructed  the  prologue  of 
Without  Head  or  Tail  by  combining  the  prologues 
of  two  plays  in  Gherardi's  collection,  Le  Divorce  and 
Les  Chinois.  Holberg's  mythological  sketch  consists 
of  three  scenes.  In  the  first,  Sganarelle  enters  and 
begs  the  audience  to  help  him  in  his  search  for  an 
act  of  a  comedy,  which  has  been  somehow  lost.  He 
and  his  fellow  players,  who  expect  some  of  the  gods 
to  attend  their  performance,  are  thrown  into  despair 
by  discovering  at  the  last  moment  that  their  comedy 
possesses  but  four  acts.  Vulcan,  who  enters  while 
the  search  is  going  on,  does  not  know,  Philistine 
that  he  is,  that  a  drama  ought  to  have  five  acts. 
He  goes  to  the  theatre  to  see  a  show,  the  more 
gorgeous  and  spectacular  the  better  ;  so  he  is  scorn- 
fully directed  to  the  theatre  of  the  German  com- 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     185 

pany.  In  the  next  scene,  Jupiter  and  Apollo  are  let 
down  upon  the  stage  from  the  roof,  while  Momus 
more  humbly  enters  by  the  door.  Momus  proves  to 
be  a  pedant,  fearfully  distressed  to  learn  that  the 
comedy  is  to  have  but  four  acts.  Apollo,  however, 
has  less  rigid  ideas  about  the  construction  of  drama. 
"A  comedy  is  a  mirror,"  he  says,"  which  presents 
the  foibles  of  mankind  in  such  a  way  that  it  amuses 
and  instructs  at  the  same  time.  When  a  comedy 
does  that,  it  is  good,  no  matter  what  the  number  of 
acts  may  be. "  "  Even  the  conventions  of  Moliere, ' ' 
he  adds, "are  no  more  fundamental  dramatic  laws 
than  other  conventions  of  Italian  or  German  com- 
edy." Jupiter,  convinced  by  Apollo's  liberal  criti- 
cism, orders  the  play  to  proceed.  He  and  Apollo  then 
take  seats  in  the  gallery,  largely  because  he  wants  to 
show  everyone  that  a  seat  up  there  need  not  bring 
disgrace. 

The  various  elements  of  this  scene  are  found  in 
different  works  of  Gherardi.  In  the  prologue  of  Le 
Divorce^  Arlequin  comes  in  to  tell  the  audience  that 
some  of  the  actors  are  ill,  so  that  the  performance 
cannot  be  given.  His  offer  to  return  everyone's  money 
at  the  box-office  is  interrupted  by  Mezzetin,  repre- 
senting Mercury.  The  motley  messenger  announces 
that  Jupiter  insists  on  seeing  the  advertised  play.  A 
moment  later,  Pierrot,  in  the  guise  of  Jupiter,  de- 
scends from  the  roof  on  the  back  of  a  turkey.  He  has 


186  HOLBERG  AND 

heard  that  in  the  play  a  man  obtains  a  divorce,  and 
he  wants  to  see  how  the  thing  is  done,  so  that  he 
can  introduce  the  custom  into  Olympian  society.  He 
announces  that  he  has  brought  a  few  pocket  thun- 
derbolts which  he  will  hurl  at  anyone  who  dares  in- 
terrupt the  play.  Jupiter,  as  he  is  here  imagined,  is 
clearly  the  model  for  the  same  figure  in  Without  Head 
orTail^  who  descends  from  heaven  in  a  similar  way 
to  dispel  by  his  divine  fiat  a  serious  embarrass- 
ment of  the  actors.  Both  gods,  after  their  orders  for 
the  continuance  of  the  play,  mount  to  the  gallery. 
The  idea  of  putting  the  critical  dicta  expressed 
in  the  Danish  prologue  into  the  mouth  of  Apollo, 
Holberg  found  already  developed  in  Les  Chinois. 
There,  Pierrot,  disguised  as  a  little  girl,  enters  to 
lament  her  mother's  refusal  to  let  her  go  to  the  play. 
Apollo  answers  the  prejudices  of  the  old-fashioned 
mother  with  a  defence  of  comedy.  "  It  is  the  mirror 
of  human  life,"  he  says,  "which  makes  vice  ap- 
pear in  all  its  horror  and  represents  virtue  in  all  its 
glory."*  In  the  next  scene  the  author  of  the  com- 
edy about  to  be  presented  has  suddenly  lost  heart.  He 
sees,  too  late,  hundreds  of  unsuspected  blemishes. 
He  is  in  despair  principally  because  it  consists  of 
but  four  acts.  Thalia,  however,  decrees  that  the 
prologue  shall  count  as  the  required  fifth  act,  and, 
turning  to  the  spectators,  announces  that  whoever 
whistles  will  be  a  dead  man  within  a  quarter  of 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     187 

an  hour.*  Holberg  makes  the  very  same  question  of 
the  propriety  of  presenting  a  play  with  but  four 
acts  the  occasion  for  Apollo's  criticism  of  comedy, 
which  is  similar  to  the  other  Apollo's  praise  given 
in  Les  Chinois. 

The  combination  of  elements  of  a  similar  sort 
taken  from  different  sources  is  characteristic  of  Hol- 
berg's  work.  The  result  in  this  case  is  a  prologue 
full  of  the  comic  spirit  of  the  commedia  del P  arte. 
No  better  incarnation  of  the  flippancy  of  these  Italian 
plays  could  well  be  imagined  than  the  burlesque 
Jupiter  dangling  from  the  roof  or  ascending  cere- 
moniously in  his  machine  to  sit  among  the  rabble 
in  the  gallery.  Yet  Holberg,  instead  of  having  Apollo 
repeat  his  prototype's  generalities,  makes  him  ex- 
press his  own  ideals  for  Danish  comedy.  He  gives 
his  scene  another  characteristic  touch  when  he  makes 
Jupiter  take  his  seat  in  the  gallery  solely  to  set  a 
worthy  example  to  snobs.  Holberg,  the  irrepressible 
teacher,  could  not  let  slip  the  opportunity  of  talk- 
ing a  little  common  sense  to  his  audience,  partic- 
ularly when  it  would  help  to  fill  vacant  seats  in  his 
theatre. 

The  Olympians  appear  in  their  Italian  role  of  crit- 
ics in  another  little  piece  of  Holberg' s,  ./^^Y^'w  Year's 
Prologue  to  a  Comedy^  which  was  presented  in  1723, 
after  Montaigu's  company  had  been  playing  in  Co- 
penhagen for  a  year,  and  was  an  answer  to  the 


188  HOLBERG  AND 

criticisms  which  had  been  directed  against  it.  As  in 
Le  Divorce  and  TVithout  Head  or  Tail^  Sganarelle's 
introductory  remarks  are  interrupted  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  number  of  strayed  Greek  gods.  The  party 
consists  of  Apollo,  Mercury,  Mars,  Vulcan,  Momus, 
Cupid,  and  Aesculapius,  all  of  whom,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Apollo,  straightway  begin  to  criticise  the 
nature  of  the  plays  which  the  company  has  been 
performing.  Apollo  and  Thalia  not  only  answer  the 
critics,  but  in  addition  praise  the  purposes  and  meth- 
ods of  comedy.  In  this  play  Holberg  wanted  simply 
to  give  his  critical  defence  of  Montaigu's  company 
a  form  amusing  enough  to  hold  the  attention  of  the 
audience.  The  mere  appearance  of  the  Italian  gods 
as  critics  was  sufficient  for  his  purpose.  He  there- 
fore made  no  effort  to  reproduce  that  rollicking, 
burlesque  spirit  of  Italian  comedy  with  which  the 
prologue  to  Without  Head  or  Tail  is  permeated. 

The  only  other  occasional  play  of  Holberg's, 
The  Funeral  of  Danish  Comedy*  is  also  closely 
modelled  on  one  of  Gherardi's  comedies,  Le  Depart 
des  Comediens.  In  the  Italian  play  the  arrival  of  an 
unpropitious  season  for  drama  has  compelled  the 
troupe  to  disband.  Arlequin's  initial  apostrophe  to 
the  vacant  theatre  is  interrupted  by  Colombine,  who 
says  that  most  of  the  actors  are  going  to  leave  the 
stage  for  some  more  lucrative  employment. "  They 
are  coming  in  here  now,"  she  continues," so  that 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL' ARTE     189 

you  can  decide  with  whom  you  want  to  associate 
your  fortunes."  All  then  enter,  one  after  another, 
to  explain  the  professions  they  are  about  to  adopt. 
Arlequin,  however,  remains  unattracted  until  Mez- 
zetin  and  Pasquariel  appear  dressed  as  opera  sing- 
ers, full  of  a  brilliant  scheme  to  give  opera  in  the 
country.  Arlequin  immediately  decides  to  cast  in  his 
lot  with  them ;  and  the  play  ends  with  a  parody  of 
Lulli's  Bellerophon. 

Holberg's  work  was  written  for  what  everyone  be- 
lieved would  be  the  last  performance  of  Montaigu's 
company  in  Copenhagen.  Although  the  occasion 
was  almost  tragic  for  everyone  interested  in  the  com- 
pany, Holberg  naturally  enough  treated  it  whimsi- 
cally. Henrich  does  not  open  the  play  like  Arlequin 
by  pronouncing  a  lyric  lament,  but  comes  upon  the 
stage  to  examine  his  grocery  bill,  which,  though 
showing  very  meagre  purchases  of  food,  he  cannot 
pay.  This  melancholy  occupation  is  interrupted  by 
Mile.  Hjort,  the  company's  Leonora,  who  announces 
that  after  a  lingering  illness.  Comedy  has  just  died. 
Another  player  urges  everyone  to  come  to  the  fu- 
neral, which  will  be  attended  by  various  excellent 
folk,  such  as  a  tea-merchant,  a  vintner,  and  two  chil- 
dren of  Israel, —  evidently  inexorable  creditors.  Mile. 
Hjort  then,  like  the  actors  in  the  Italian  comedy, 
discusses  her  future  with  Henrich,  who  advises  her 
to  decide,  as  Colombine  had  done  under  similar  cir- 


190  HOLBERG  AND 

cumstances,  to  become  a  servant;  but  she  knows  of 
no  one  who  will  engage  her,  for  the  actors  by  their 
direct  satire  have  antagonized  all  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men,  officers,  doctors,  lawyers,  tinkers,  mar- 
quises, barons,  and  barbers.  After  this  inconclusive 
discussion,  the  cortege  enters.  First,  the  corpse  of 
Comedy,  impersonated  by  one  of  the  actors,  is  trun- 
dled in  on  a  wheelbarrow.  Then  follows  a  long  line 
of  mourning  actors  and  actresses,  with  their  chil- 
dren. After  the  procession  has  marched  two  or  three 
times  round  the  stage,  the  barrow  is  wheeled  down 
into  a  hole.  This  last  dreadful  symbol  of  eternal 
separation  is  too  great  for  Henrich  to  bear.  In  the 
presence  of  all,  he  leaps  into  the  grave,  determined 
to  be  buried  with  his  dear  departed  friend. 

Holberg  obviously  owes  the  fundamental  idea  of 
this  piece  to  the  similar  Italian  play.  In  both  works 
acompany  of  cashiered  players  comes  upon  the  stage 
to  discuss  their  misfortunes  and  gloomy  prospects 
before  the  audience.  The  imperfect  way  in  which 
the  Italian  figures  were  always  identified  with  their 
roles  made  the  appearance  of  Arlequin  and  Colom- 
bine  as  mere  actors  seem  natural  and  consistent 
with  their  traditional  comic  spirit.  The  appearance 
of  the  different  members  of  Montaigu's  company 
in  their  own  persons  is  much  less  in  the  spirit  of 
Holberg' s  play.  To  the  various  burials  of  the  Mass, 
he  may  owe  the  general  idea  of  the  death  and  burial 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     191 

of  Comedy,  yet  in  none  of  them  could  he  have  found 
the  farcical  funeral  procession  in  which  one  may  read 
most  clearly  the  popular  appeal  of  the  piece.  At  the 
same  time  it  should  be  observed  that  the  author  filled 
this  comedy,  created  under  the  influence  of  one  of 
Gherardi's  plays,  with  broad  and  realistic  humour 
which  was  not  Italian. 

Of  all  Holberg's  dramas,  however,  Ulysses  von 
Ithacia  is  the  most  completely  saturated  with  the 
spirit  of  the  commedia  delP  wte.  Although  frankly  a 
parody  of  the  comedies  given  in  Copenhagen  by  a 
company  of  German  actors,  Holberg  undoubtedly 
derived  the  form  of  the  work,  perhaps  the  very  idea 
of  writing  it,  from  various  similar  pieces  in  Ghe- 
rardi's collection.  The  flippant,  unrestrained  gaiety 
of  Italian  comedy  had  always  been  well  suited  to 
this  sort  of  literary  jesting.  Gherardi's  company 
had  played  parodies  of  every  kind, — parodies  of 
scenes  from  contemporary  dramas,  of  entire  operas, 
or  more  particularly  of  the  inflated  shades  of  the 
gods  and  heroes  of  antiquity  who  strutted  through 
the  operas  of  the  eighteenth  century.*  The  mere 
appearance  of  Arlequin  or  Mezzetin  in  the  role  of 
Jupiter  or  Ulysses  was  in  itself  a  complete  travesty. 
The  humour  consisted,  of  course,  in  the  incongru- 
ity between  the  traditional  grandeur  and  dignity  of 
these  supermen  and  the  traditional  triviality  of  the 
clowns.  The  zanies  are  utterly  unable  to  sink  their 


192  HOLBERG  AND 

personalities  in  the  strange  parts  they  suddenly  find 
themselves  compelled  to  play.  In  Arlequin  Phaeton^ 
Arlequin  is  obliged  to  impersonate  a  dashing  hero 
whose  every  action  is  inconsistent  with  his  own 
nature.  He  is,  therefore,  constantly  falling  out  of  his 
role.  He  halts  and  perverts  the  action.  When  he 
should  be  driving  his  plunging  horses  across  the 
firmament,  he  and  his  companion  Momus  amuse 
themselves  by  mystifying  a  liquor- vendor  with  their 
aerial  calls,  or  he  loses  himself  in  wonder  at  the  signs 
of  the  zodiac,  which  he  cannot  believe  are  not  real 
animals.  He  is  finally  forced  to  realize  the  mere  ac- 
tion which  his  r61e  demands,  when  he  is  suddenly 
pulled  across  the  stage  in  a  crude  machine  from 
which  he  is  hurled  to  the  floor  by  a  clumsy  thun- 
derbolt flung  by  Jupiter.  The  play  is  funny  because 
Arlequin  remains  incorrigibly  Arlequin,  when  he 
is  supposed  to  be  impersonating  a  character  of  an 
utterly  different  nature.  Many  other  plays  in  Ghe- 
rardi's  collection  produce  their  humour  in  very 
similar  ways.  And,  like  them,  Holberg's  Ulysses 
von  Ithacia  is  funny  because  Chilian,  the  servant  of 
Ulysses,  on  all  occasions  falls  out  of  his  part  back 
into  his  clownish  nature,  whence  he  contemplates 
and  criticises,  not  only  the  part  he  is  supposed  to 
play,  but  all  the  action  of  the  piece.  Ulysses  von 
Ithacia  is,  however,  even  more  definitely  related  to 
Gherardi's  dramas,  for  one  of  them,  Ulysses  and 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     193 

Circe^  furnished  Holberg  much  definite  dramatic 
material  from  which  his  comedy  is  constructed. 

Both  works  present  an  absurd  confusion  of  inci- 
dents in  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  After  the  fight- 
ing round  Troy  has  been  shown  in  Holberg's  play, 
Ulysses  enters  to  declare  that  ten  years  have  passed, 
Troy  has  fallen,  and  it  is  therefore  time  to  go  home. 
In  Ulysses  von  Ithacia^  this  swift  passage  of  time  is 
even  more  pointedly  ridiculed,  where  the  ten  years 
are  supposed  to  pass  during  a  single  speech  by  Chil- 
ian.* In  both  comedies,  the  parts  of  the  wander- 
ings chosen  for  ridicule  are  Ulysses's  adventures  on 
Circe's  island.  In  Ulysses  and  Circe.,  the  sorceress, 
throu  gh  love  of  Ulysses ,  cau  ses  his  ship  to  be  wrecked 
off  her  coast.  The  moment  that  the  Greeks  are  tossed 
up  into  her  domain,  she  changes  all  of  them  except 
Ulysses  and  Arlequin  into  animals  of  various  sorts. 
These  beasts,  each  in  a  disguise  ridiculously  par- 
tial, execute  a  chorus  of  appropriate  cries  to  verses 
sung  by  Mezzetin  the  cat.f  Later,  they  all  appear 
to  the  horror-stricken  Ulysses  and  Arlequin.  The 
latter,  easily  recognizing  his  old  comrades  even  in 
their  animal  form,  goes  abou't  embracing  them  with 
so  much  grief  that  he  finally  induces  Circe  to  re- 
verse her  charms.  When  once  more  the  men  assume 
their  proper  shapes,  they  eagerly  join  Arlequin  in  a 
parody  of  the  opera  Armide.  Holberg  introduces  the 
same  bit  of  wild  farce  into  his  comedy.  Chilian's 


194  HOLBERG  AND 

companions  are  all  turned  into  swine,  and,  like  the 
bewitched  men  in  the  Italian  play,  they  come  in 
crawling  and  grunting.  Chilian,  instead  of  embrac- 
ing his  friends  like  Arlequin,  enters  thoroughly  into 
the  spirit  of  their  disguise  and  lashes  them  with 
a  whip  until  they  get  up  to  protest  that  they  will 
complain  to  the  author  of  the  play.  The  operatic 
U  Oiseau  Bleu  of  the  Italians  has  become  in  Hol- 
berg's  hand  sheer  physical  farce. 

The  similarity  in  the  subject-matter  of  the  two 
parodies  is  largely  adventitious.  Ulysses  von  Ithacia 
is  essentially  an  Italian  comedy,  first  because  it  is 
filled  with  comic  devices  taken  from  various  plays 
in  Gherardi's  collection,*  but  most  fundamentally 
because  it  produces  its  humour  in  the  peculiar 
manner  here  shown  to  be  characteristic  of  the  corn- 
media  deir  arte.  The  characters  of  the  figures  in 
Holberg  are  also  utterly  unsuited  to  the  situations 
in  which  they  are  compelled  to  act.  They  wear  no 
conventional  costumes  to  make  their  imperfect  as- 
sumptions of  roles  instantly  evident.  But  they  con- 
tinually show  that  they  are  merely  masquerading 
in  their  parts.  Chilian  rudely  dispels  all  dramatic 
illusion  when  he  takes  off  Ulysses's  beard  and  puts 
it  on  his  own  chin  to  convince  the  spectators  that 
he  is  really  older  than  in  the  preceding  scene.  The 
last  shred  of  pretence  is  literally  torn  off  in  the  last 
scene,  when  two  Jewish  costumers  enter  and  strip 


THE  COMMEDIA  DELL'  ARTE     195 

the  principal  figure  of  his  hired  Ulysses  costume, 
for  which  he  has  been  unable  to  pay.*  The  actors 
who  impersonate  trees  and  stones  are  still  more  easily 
and  obviously  shown  to  be  part  of  a  crude  masquer- 
ade. In  this  play,  then,  Holberg  finds  means  as 
obvious  as  the  conventional  costumes  of  the  Italian 
figures  to  fix  immediately  the  attitude  of  the  spec- 
tators toward  the  actors  and  their  parts.  Farce  that 
was  inherent  in  the  commedia  delVarte^  Holberg  has 
been  at  pains  to  produce  by  numerous  devices. 

Holberg's  debt  to  the  commedia  deWarte,  as  it  had 
come  to  be  played  in  France  during  the  closing 
years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  evidently  fun- 
damental and  vital.  The  perfunctory  plot  of  the  lovers 
is  equally  perfunctory  in  his  plays.  The  clownish 
figures  who  are  most  instrumental  in  developing 
and  conducting  that  plot  appear  again  in  Holberg 
with  many  of  their  most  characteristic  tricks  of  dis- 
guise, horse-play,  and  physical  farce.  Finally,  not 
only  numerous  comic  devices  of  Italian  comedy, 
but  much  of  its  peculiar  comic  spirit,  reappears  in 
only  slightly  different  form  in  Holberg's  dramas.  Yet 
to  every  element  that  he  has  borrowed  he  has  added 
his  own  touches  of  realism.  The  unrestrained,  pur- 
poseless gaiety  of  the  Italians  has  been  given  point. 
The  clowns,  even  in  the  midst  of  their  most  ex- 
travagant trickery,  are  unconsciously  labouring  to 
help  an  original  personage  to  show  his  nature  to  the 


196  HOLBERG 

best  advantage.  One  feels  in  the  midst  of  the  wild- 
est vagaries  of  Ulysses  voji  Ithacia  that  behind  this 
glut  of  gaiety  is  the  author's  serious  desire  to  im- 
prove the  taste  of  the  Danish  public.  Certain  ele- 
ments of  the  commedia  delV  arte  which  were  sure 
to  appeal  to  uneducated  audiences  became,  like  cer- 
tain other  features  of  Moliere's  comedy,  a  means  of 
illustrating  character  both  realistically  and  natively 
Danish. 


HOLBERG  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 
OTHER  THAN  MOLIERE 


CHAPTER  V 

HOLBERG  AND  FRENCH  LITERATURE 
OTHER  THAN   MOLIERE 

BOTH  Moliere's  works  and  the  commedia  delV 
arte  exerted  an  influence  upon  Holberg  of  much 
greater  importance  than  that  of  any  other  form  of 
comedy.  Yet  the  Danish  writer  was  too  widely  read  ■ 
and  too  cathoHc  in  his  literary  tastes  to  find  his 
inspiration  exclusively  in  these  two  sources.  His 
knowledge  of  French  literature  seems  to  have  been 
almost  encyclopedic .  In  the  mass  of  French  drama 
written  by  Moliere's  predecessors,  contemporaries, 
and  immediate  successors,  Holberg  more  than  once 
discovered  material  suited  to  his  comic  purposes. 
His  interest  in  this  literature  was  natural.  The  rep- 
ertory of  Montaigu's  company,  which  played  in 
Copenhagen  during  his  youth,  contained  comedies 
by  Dancourt  and  Legrand,  as  well  as  by  Moliere. 
The  Danish  company,  moreover,  during  the  first 
year  of  its  existence  played  a  translation  of  Bour- 
sault's  Esope  a  la  Ville.  Any  curiosity  that  this  fa- 
miharity  with  French  drama  may  have  aroused 
in  Holberg  could  have  been  thoroughly  satisfied  by 
his  two  sojourns  in  Paris. 

To  French  comedy  anterior  to  Moliere,  and  there- 
fore free  from  his  transforming  influence,  Holberg 


200  HOLBERG  AND 

owes  but  little.  Even  the  traditional  figures  of  the 
earlier  comedy  nearly  always  assumed  forms  in 
Moliere  which  any  skilful  writer  would  surely  rec- 
ognize as  improvements.  Two  persons  in  Holberg's 
plays,  however,  seem  to  attach  themselves  to  the 
older  tradition  directly, — Terentia  in  The  Bride- 
groom Metamorphosed,  and  Jeronimus  in  Pernille'^ s 
Shoii:  Experience  as  a  Lady. 

Terentia  has  many  forerunners  in  the  older  French 
comedy.*  In  spite  of  the  vigorous  remonstrances 
of  her  two  mature  daughters,  this  old  woman  is 
determined  to  marry  again,  and,  if  possible,  to  en- 
snare some  dashing  young  officer.  The  resourceful 
Pernille,  of  course,  finds  a  way  to  cure  her  mis- 
tress of  her  folly.  She  has  her  sister  impersonate 
a  gay  lieutenant  and  pay  court  to  Terentia.  After 
making  simpering  but  open  advances  to  the  lovely 
soldier,  Terentia  manages  to  induce  him  to  pro- 
pose marriage.  She  accepts  him  with  indecent  haste 
and  then  lets  him  depart.  He  has  been  gone  but  a 
moment  when  a  third  conspirator  enters  with  the 
astounding  news  that  the  officer  has  been  suddenly 
and  miraculously  metamorphosed  into  a  girl.  This 
miracle  Terentia  thinks  is  Heaven's  punishment  for 
her  foolish  desire,  which  she  forthwith  renounces 
penitently.  The  Bridegroom  Metamorphosed  is  appar- 
ently the  last  of  Holberg's  plays,  and  is  one  of  his 
feeblest.  It  is  short,  slight,  and  silly.  The  figure  of 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  201 

Terentia  is  interesting,  however,  because  it  belongs 
to  well-defined  French  comic  tradition. 

The  old  woman  ridiculously  in  love  appears  first 
in  French  comedy  in  the  Alizon  of  "Discret,"  a 
play  presented  in  1638.  Though  Alizon  Fleurie  is 
senile,  she  has  two  devoted  lovers,  M.  Jeremie,  aged 
eighty,  and  M.  Karolu,  a  decrepit  old  merchant. 
The  comedy  consists  largely  in  the  coy  love-mak- 
ing of  these  three  persons.  Karolu  kisses  Fleurie  in 
the  street  and  she  responds  with  a  deal  of  bash- 
ful grimacing  and  farcical  confusion.  Such  attempts 
at  girlishness,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  made 
comical  largely  because  the  part  of  Fleurie  was 
played  by  a  man.  M.  Fournel  says  of  the  actor, 
Alizon,  who  created  the  part:*  "II  en  avait  fait 
I'etiquette  d'un  type,  celui  des  vieilles  ridicules, 
dont  aucune  comedienne  n'avait  encore  pris  le  role. ' ' 
The  figure,  from  the  moment  of  its  creation  thus 
definitely  conventionalized,  reappeared  constantly  in 
subsequent  comedy .  It  assumed  a  very  popular  form 
in  Quinault's  La  Mere  Coquette^  and  in  Thomas 
Corneille's  Le  Baron  cVAlbikrac  is  the  centre  of  a  plot 
closely  resembling  that  of  The  Bridegroom  Meta- 
morphosed. La  Tante  in  Corneille's  play  is  in  love 
with  her  niece's  lover,  Oronte.  To  free  himself  from 
her  persistent  advances,  he  has  her  servant  dis- 
guise himself  as  a  Baron  d'Albikrac,  who  professes 
to  be  desperately  in  love  with  the  old   lady.  His 


202  HOLBERG  AND 

gross  and  extravagant  attentions  satisfy  La  Xante's 
idea  of  passionate  love.  She  fears,  moreover,  that, 
should  she  reject  him,  he  would  vent  his  furious 
disappointment  in  revenge  upon  Oronte.  Flattered 
vanity  masking  as  prudence,  accordingly,  makes 
her  agree  to  marry  the  fictitious  baron.  Corneille  is 
here  imitating  Moliere's  comedy  of  character,  with- 
out abandoning  the  methods  of  the  early  Italianate 
French  comedy  which  were  always  a  part  of  his  dra- 
matic idiom.  Holberg's  plays,  as  we  have  seen,  were 
an  amalgamation  of  the  same  two  comic  methods.  It 
is  natural,  then,  that  this  dramatic  experiment  of 
Corneille  should  resemble  The  Bridegroom  Metamor- 
phosed; but  the  resemblances  are  only  general,  and 
probably  largely  adventitious.  Terentia  is  perhaps 
closer  to  La  Tante  than  to  Moliere's  infinitely  more 
amusing  and  real  Belise,  yet  she  is  quite  as  much 
like  Lady  Wishfort,  in  a  play  which  Holberg  knew, 
—  Congreve's  The  TV  ay  of  the  World.  Plainly,  one 
cannot  settle  upon  any  definite  prototype  of  Te- 
rentia. It  is  enough  to  assert  that  she  belongs  to  a 
familiar  French  comedy  type. 

Jeronimus,  the  old  man  in  Pernille'' s  SJiort  Expe- 
rience as  a  Lady,  who  goes  to  woo  Leonora  for  his 
stepson  and  remains  to  woo  her  for  himself,  is  also 
like  one  of  the  types  of  the  older  French  comedy.  A 
similar  figure  is  not  unknown  to  classical  literature. 
Demaenetus,  in  the  Asinaria,*  who  compels  his  son 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  203 

to  sit  by  while  he  embraces  the  youth's  mistress,  is 
perhaps  the  best-known  of  these  amorous  old  men 
in  Latin  drama.  Fathers  who  become  the  rivals  of 
their  own  sons  appear  frequently  in  French  com- 
edy of  the  seventeenth  century.  In  Quinault's  La 
Mere  Coquette^  Cremante,  although  old  and  half- 
dead  with  asthma,  wishes  to  marry  Isabelle,  his  son's 
mistress.  Luckily  he  is  balked  by  the  unexpected 
return  of  the  girl's  father,  with  whom  he  had  long 
before  arranged  a  marriage  between  Isabelle  and  his 
son.  Montfleury  in  La  Fille  Capitaine  (1673)  pre- 
sents an  interesting  member  of  this  group  in  the 
character  M.  Le Blanc.  Although  married,  he  makes 
love  to  his  nephew's  mistress,  Lucinde.  He  is  forced 
to  surrender  the  girl  to  her  lover,  however,  by  the 
servant  Angelique,  who,  disguised  as  a  firebrand  of 
an  officer,  pays  court  to  M.  Le  Blanc's  wife.*  Harpa-  ^ 
gon  mUAvare^  and  to  a  certain  extent  M.  Jourdain  ' 
in  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme^  both  created  out  of 
this  tradition,  are  two  of  Moliere's  most  individual 
comic  protagonists.  The  Danish  Jeronimus,  an  igno- 
ble mixture  of  avarice,  deceit,  and  smug  piety,  is  no 
less  a  personality  than  these  old  men  in  Moliere.  Yet 
his  individuality  is  not  like  theirs.  Perhaps,  there- 
fore, he  does  not  derive  the  elements  of  his  character 
from  them,  but  from  the  simpler  form  which  the 
amorous  octogenarian  assumed  in  earlier  French 
comedy.  The  influence  of  this  older  comedy  cannot 


204  HOLBERG  AND 

be  discovered  elsewhere  in  Holberg's  work.*  In  the 
two  cases  just  discussed,  it  is,  one  must  admit,  only 
general  and  indefinite. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  influence  of  Moliere's  suc- 
cessors upon  Holberg  is  occasionally  specific  and 
definite.  One  group  of  these  successors  is  composed 
of  men  who,  though  beginning  their  careers  as  au- 
thors for  the  Italians,  later  produced  equally  suc- 
cessful plays  for  the  French  theatre.  Regnard,  Pala- 
prat,  and  Dufresny  were  the  three  most  important 
members  of  this  group.  Their  work  was  inevitably 
modified  by  the  traditions  both  of  the  commedia  delP 
arte  and  of  Moliere's  comedy  of  character.  Yet  Hol- 
berg's drama  is  only  superficially  like  theirs.  To 
Dufresny 's  slight  and  rather  involved  comedy  of 
intrigue,  his  own  bears  no  resemblance.  Regnard, 
in  plays  like  Le  Joueur  and  Le  Distrait^  did  produce 
brilliant  comedies  of  character ;  but  he  neither  em- 
ploys the  motley  pawns  of  Italian  farce  to  conduct 
his  dramatic  action,  nor  does  he  describe  character 
with  Holberg's  moral  preoccupation.  His  attitude  is 
nonchalant  and  cynical.  He  reproduces  the  pageant 
of  life  as  literally  as  he  can,  without  passing  judge- 
ment on  what  he  sees.  His  laughter  at  the  foibles 
of  his  characters  betrays  no  desire  to  correct  them. 
His  fools  are  never  reformed,  or  even  improved,  by 
the  dramatic  action.  Valere,  the  gambler,  feels  no 
real  regret  even  at  losing  his  mistress  through  his 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  205 

passion  for  play.  At  the  end  of  Le  Joiieiir^  he  cheer- 
fully remarks : 

Va,  va,  consolons-nous,  Hector,  et  quelque  jour 
Le  jeu  m'acquittei'a  des  pertes  de  1 'amour. 

The  irresponsible  attitude  which  Regnard  habitu- 
ally takes  towards  his  characters  is  the  very  antith- 
esis of  Holberg's  determination  to  impose  human- 
istic restraints  upon  all  his  fools. 

One  of  Palaprat's  plays,  Le  Grandeur^  is  a  comedy 
of  character  in  which  the  intriguing  servant  plays 
the  traditional  role  of  an  Italian  zany.  He  accom- 
plishes the  marriage  of  the  grumbler's  daughter  with 
her  lover,  by  having  the  youth  disguise  himself  as 
the  Prince  of  Madagascar.  This  play,  like  Holberg's 
Don  Ranudo,  is  a  revised  version  of  Le  Bourgeois 
GentUhomme;  but  it  resembles  Holberg's  play  even 
less  than  it  does  that  of  Moliere.  There  is  real  psy- 
chological fitness  in  the  eagerness  of  the  insanely 
proud  Spaniard  to  marry  his  daughter  to  the  Prince 
of  Ethiopia.  There  is  no  corresponding  fitness  in 
the  similar  eagerness  of  an  everlasting  grumbler  to 
marry  his  daughter  to  the  Prince  of  Madagascar. 
The  denouement  in  Palaprat's  play  is  sheer  farce.  In 
Holberg's  it  is  an  important  part  of  the  comedy  of 
character.  Palaprat  completely  dissociates  dramatic 
elements  which  Holberg  fuses. 

A  second  group  of  Moliere's  successors  comprises 


206  HOLBERG  AND 

comic  writers  like  Hauteroche,  Baron,  and  Dan- 
court,  who  imitated  only  their  master's  more  far- 
cical and  superficial  comedies  of  manners.  They 
learned  from  him  to  write  gay  social  satire,  but  failed 
completely  to  catch  his  directness  and  incisiveness. 
Christmas  Eve  is  the  only  play  of  Holberg  which 
expresses  the  irresponsible,  purposeless  gaiety  of 
the  short  comedies  composed  by  these  men.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  this  work  seems  to  be  based  partly 
on  Dancourt's  Colin- Maillard. 

In  the  French  drama,  M.  Robinet,  the  old  tutor  of 
Angelique,is  determined  to  marry  her .  She,  although 
in  love  with  Eraste,  promises  herself  in  a  moment 
of  pique  to  M.  Robinet.  Thereupon  he  summons  a 
band  of  musicians  to  play  for  his  friends  to  dance 
until  the  notary  arrives.  In  the  crowd  of  merry-mak- 
ers is  Eraste  disguised  as  a  peasant  boy.  Finally, 
the  guests  tire  of  this  form  of  amusement  and  some 
one  proposes  a  game  of  colin-maillard,  or  blind- 
man's-buff.  M .  Robinet  opposes  the  suggestion,  but 
he  is  overruled  and  himself  blindfolded.  While  he 
is  groping  about,  the  two  lovers  run  oif  to  be  mar- 
ried .  In  Christmas  Eve,  the  crisis  is  precipitated  by 
a  similar  game.  The  household  of  Jeronimus,  con- 
sisting of  Leonora  his  wife,  Leander  her  young  lover, 
and  a  swarm  of  children  and  domestic  servants,  is 
engaged  in  a  homely  Christmas  celebration.  In  the 
course  of  the  evening,  a  game  of  blindman's-buif 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  207 

is  suggested.  When  Jeronimus  is  blinded,  Leonora 
and  her  lover  run  away  together.  As  soon  as  the  old 
husband  discovers  their  flight,  he  rushes  out  after 
them  and  drags  them  back  into  the  house.  There 
Leander's  servants  set  upon  him  and  create  such 
an  uproar  that  an  officer  of  the  peace  breaks  in  and 
arrests  all  the  combatants. 

These  two  scenes  are  alike  in  that  the  game  in 
each  case  gives  the  lover  a  chance  to  deceive  his  old 
rival.  Both  plays,  moreover,  display  the  same  pre- 
dominant comic  spirit.  Unlike  all  the  rest  of  Hol- 
berg's  com.edies,Cknsfmas  Eve  is  practically  point- 
less. No  complicated  intrigue  is  resolved,  no  social 
foible  satirized,  and  no  central  character  ridiculed. 
Like  Coiin-Afaillard  and,  indeed,  like  most  of  Dan- 
court's  plays,  it  merely  occupies  a  definite  period 
of  time  with  thoughtless,  unmoral  gaiety.  Holberg's 
sole  experiment  in  the  comic  manner  of  the  lively 
but  careless  Dancourt  was  plainly  ill-suited  to  his 
genius. 

To  the  influence  of  Edme  Boursault  (1638-1 70 1), 
more  a  contemporary  and  rival  of  Moliere  than  in 
any  sense  his  successor,  we  have  seen  that  Holberg 
was  exposed ;  the  one  play  besides  those  of  Moliere 
which  the  founders  of  the  Danish  theatre  thought 
worthy  of  immediate  translation  was  Boursault' s 
Esope  a  la  V'llle.  Traces  of  the  somewhat  mechani- 
cal methods  of  this  comic  moralist  can  often  be  seen 


208  HOLBERG  AND 

in  Holberg's  work.  At  least  once  the  same  incident 
does  duty  in  both  writers.  The  two  farcically  loqua- 
cious women  who  appear  in  Boursault's  La  Comedie 
sans  Titre*  seem  to  be  the  prototypes  of  the  simi- 
lar figures  in  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck .  In  the  French 
play,  among  a  host  of  people  who  visit  the  temporary 
editor  of  the  journal,  Le  Mercure  Galant^  are  two 
sisters,  who  have  found  particularly  instructive  one 
of  his  essays  commending  to  women  ' '  le  grand  art 
de  se  taire."  They  have  visited  him,  in  fact,  to  as- 
certain which  one  of  them  has  learned  perfectly 
her  lesson  of  silence.  Then  both  begin  to  prove  their 
ability  to  keep  quiet  by  contradicting  and  inter- 
rupting each  other  in  a  torrent  of  words.  Accord- 
ing to  the  stage  directions, ' '  elles  parlent  toutes  deux 
le  plus  vite  qu'il  leur  est  possible,"  and  finally, 
"elles  parlent  en  meme  temps." 

In  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck^  among  those  who 
appear  in  court  to  accuse  the  satirist  Leander  of  rid- 
iculing them  personally  are  two  garrulous  sisters. 
Like  the  French  women,  they  interrupt  each  other 
and  talk  at  the  same  time  in  their  efforts  to  prove 
that  Leander's  satire  against  loquacious  women  was 
aimed  directly  at  them.  These  sisters  are  enough 
like  the  two  chatterers  in  the  French  comedy  to  be 
copies  of  them.  Furthermore,  the  idea  of  this  entire 
fifth  act  of  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck —  that  of  hav- 
ing sensitive  people  apply  general  satire  to  their  own 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  209 

foibles  and  then  accuse  the  author  of  malicious  per- 
sonal ridicule  —  Holberg  may  have  derived  from 
Boursault's  play. 

One  of  the  amusing  figures  in  Le  Mercure  Galant 
is  a  certain  Madame  Guillemot.  She  enters  the  office 
of  the  editor,  furiously  angry,  saying : 

On  dit  que  c'est  de  moi  dont  vous  voulez  parler, 
Quand  certaine  bourgeoise  a  qui  la  mode  est  douce. 
Pour  etre  en  cramoisi,  fit  defaire  une  housse. 

Then  she  explains  carefully  just  how  she  happened 
to  make  a  gown  out  of  an  old  couch-cover.  Her  ex- 
planation shows  that  the  satire  in  the  objectionable 
essay  could  easily  be  regarded  as  a  realistic  descrip- 
tion of  herself.  Like  those  prosecuting  the  poet  Le- 
ander,  whom  Holberg  obviously  meant  to  stand  for 
himself,  she  puts  on  the  shoe  of  the  author's  satire 
and  then  blames  him  because  she  finds  it  a  fit. 

The  construction  of  Le  Mercure  Galant  is  loose 
and  mechanical.  Oronte,  the  editor,  has  merely  to 
take  his  seat  in  the  office  and  the  odd  figures  straight- 
way enter  one  after  another  to  display  their  foibles. 
Boursault's  Esope  a  la  Ville  is  constructed  in  the 
same  artless  manner.  Although  the  comedy  is  given 
an  appearance  of  organic  unity  through  the  compli- 
cations produced  by  Esope 's  pretended  love  for  Eu- 
phrosine,  the  sole  interest  of  the  play  lies  in  the  seer's 
episodic  moral  comment.  The  characters  form  aeon- 


210  HOLBERG  AND 

tinuous  random  sort  of  procession.  Each  person,  by 
the  advice  that  he  asks,  betrays  his  folly  or  actual 
immorality.  Esope  answers  every  one  by  narrating 
an  appropriate  moral  fable;  and,  by  his  tactfully 
indirect  sermon,  invariably  convinces  his  petitioner 
of  folly  and  sends  him  away  miraculously  reformed. 
The  naive  dramatic  method  employed  in  both  of 
these  plays  is  a  better  didactic  than  comic  medium. 
Yet  Boursault  continued  to  use  it  until  it  became 
a  distinct  mannerism. 

Holberg,  whose  ethical  preoccupation  was  not  un- 
like that  of  Boursault,  more  than  once  adopts  the 
Frenchman's  easy  method  of  making  satiric  social 
and  moral  comment.  He  employs  it,  for  example,  in 
the  last  act  of  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck^  some  of  the 
incidents  of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  suggested 
by  details  in  Boursault.  There  several  persons  who 
fancy  themselves  slandered  by  Leander's  satire  are 
marshalled  by  his  enemy,  Rosiflengius,  to  act  as 
witnesses  against  him.  The  young  Frenchified 
dandy,  the  rough  and  ready  politician,  the  fickle- 
minded  girl,  the  pedantic  schoolmaster,  the  garru- 
lous sisters,  the  affected  lady,  the  bombastic  officer, — 
all  these  appear,  one  after  another,  to  prefer  their 
charges.  Like  the  figures  in  Boursault's  comedies, 
they  form  a  continuous  but  unrelated  procession  of 
grotesques.  Similarly,  in  The  Lying-in  Chamber,  the 
young  mother  sits  in  her  easy-chair  during  two  acts, 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  211 

receiving  calls  from  a  long  line  of  ridiculous  women 
who  do  not  come  and  go  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  any  plot.  They  simply  chance  to  visit  the  same 
woman  on  the  same  day.  The  people  in  Plutiis^  who 
enter  one  after  another  to  complain  of  the  evils 
which  wealth  has  introduced  into  the  life  of  their  city, 
and  those  in  Witchcraft^  who  come  to  the  supposed 
wizard  Leander  with  innumerable  absurd  requests, 
form  similar  casual  processions.  This  method  of 
writing  comedy  gives  unlimited  opportunity  for  ef- 
fective satire  and  for  diverse  moral  comment ;  it  does 
not  produce  amusing  or  even  interesting  scenes.  In 
the  invention  of  simple,  organic,  dramatic  action, 
Holberg  seldom  shows  much  power.  He  is  too  often 
willing  either  to  allow  his  characters  to  indulge  in  the 
wild  horse-play  of  Italian  zanies,  or  to  arrange  that 
they  march  as  in  review  before  him  with  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  being  satirized.  The  second  of  these 
substitutes  for  the  action  that  develops  naturally 
from  clash  of  character,  Holberg  seems  to  have 
learned  from  Edme  Boursault. 

Legrand,  another  writer  of  comedy  who  is  in  no 
proper  sense  a  successor  of  Moliere,  exerted  some  in- 
fluence upon  Holberg.  The  only  explicit  criticism 
that  Holberg  makes  of  him  is  unfavourable.  The  de- 
light of  the  French  public  in  1725-26  in  Legrand's 
spectacular  extravaganza,  and  its  consequent  par- 
tial neglect  of  Moliere' s  comedies,  provoked  him 


212  HOLBERG  AND 

to  disgusted  protest.*  To  some  of  Legrand' splays  of 
a  diflferent  sort,  however,  he  evidently  gave  a  quali- 
fied approval.  He  seems,  at  any  rate,  to  have  been 
indebted  to  two  of  them ;  for  LP  Epreuve  Reciproque 
probably  suggested  the  plot  oi  H enrich  and  Pernille, 
and  Legrand 's  Plutiis  is  probably  the  immediate 
source  of  Holberg's  comedy  of  the  same  name.  Hol- 
berg's  knowledge  of  these  plays  would  have  been 
quite  natural.  During  the  years  1725-26,  when 
he  was  in  Paris,  Legrand 's  popularity  was  at  its 
height.  Nine  of  his  comedies  were  presented,  with 
a  total  of  seventy-six  performances,  in  1725;  and 
in  the  following  year  ten  were  given,  with  a  total 
of  fifty-seven  performances.  L"* Epreuve  Reciproque 
was  first  played  in  1726,  the  year  in  whioh  H enrich 
and  Peimille  was  probably  composed ;  and  Plutus, 
although  first  played  in  1720,  was  not  printed 
until  1 75 l,f  the  same  year  in  which  the  Danish 
Plutus  appeared.  Holberg's  personal  knowledge  of 
Legrand 's  popularity  probably  caused  him  to  follow 
his  work  with  curiosity  and  to  imitate  it  whenever 
he  could.  RahbekJ  long  ago  suggested  that  the 
source  of  the  plot  of  H enrich  and  Pemille  was  either 
Cervantes' s  JVovela  del  Casamiento  Enganoso  or  the 
version  of  the  same  story  which  appears  as  an 
epsiode  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Rule  a  Wife 
and  have  a  Wife.  As  an  afterthought,  he  intimates 
that  the  Danish  plot  may  be  related  to  Legrand 's 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  213 

VEpreuve  Reciproque.  This  last  relation  seems,  on 
examination,  to  be  the  most  probable  of  the  three. 

The  plot  oi  H enrich  and  Peniille  runs  as  follows : 
Henrich,  Leander's  valet,  has  been  sent  to  town  to 
prepare  for  his  master's  arrival.  Having  access  to 
Leander's  wardrobe,  he  dons  his  rich  clothes  and 
parades  as  a  gendeman.  Adorned  in  this  borrowed 
finery,  he  wins  the  love  of  an  apparendy  rich  girl 
across  the  way.  She  is  in  reality,  however,  merely 
the  maid  Pernille,  decked  out  in  the  clothes  of  her 
mistress  Leonora,  the  betrothed  of  Leander.  When 
the  lovers  themselves  finally  come  to  town,  each  one 
is  astonished  to  learn  that  the  servant  has  success- 
fully masqueraded  himself  into  the  favour  of  thecrim- 
inally  fickle  lover.  Both  Leander  and  Leonora  are 
grimly  determined  that  the  deception  shall  be  kept 
up  until  the  disastrous  marriage  is  made.  Delighted 
at  their  successful  hoax,  the  two  servants  are  proudly 
wedded.  Only  after  this  event  does  Jeronimus,  Leo- 
nora's father,  succeed  in  revealing  the  true  situation 
to  all  concerned.  The  lovers  then  marry  happily ;  the 
servants  beat  each  other  stoutly  for  their  mutual 
deceit,  but  decide  to  accept  the  inevitable. 

The  distinctive  feature  of  this  plot  is  the  dou- 
ble disguise.  Valets  and  masters  had  occasionally 
changed  places  in  French  comedy  ever  since  the 
appearance  of  Scarron's  Jodelet  ou  le  Maitre  Valet ^ 
in  1645.  In  Cervantes's  tale,  as  in  Beaumont  and 


214  HOLBERG  AND 

Fletcher's  dramatic  redaction,  which  Holberg  might 
easily  have  seen,*  there  is  a  double  deception.  Esti- 
fania,  while  her  mistress  is  abroad,  by  occupying  her 
mansion,  fools  a  certain  Perez  into  believing  her  a 
lady  of  fashion.  This  fellow,  in  his  turn,  by  a  dis- 
play of  worthless  jewels,  successfully  plays  the  role 
of  a  fabulously  wealthy  copper  "king."  The  two 
marry,  only  to  discover  that  they  have  been  mutu- 
ally duped.  These  Spanish  impostors  adopt  devices 
for  ensnaring  each  other  similar  to  those  of  Henrich 
and  Pernille.  Yet  they  are  not  valet  and  maid  in  the 
employ  of  the  two  real  lovers,  as  in  both  Holberg' s 
comedy  and  in  Li'Epreuve  Reaproque. 

In  Legrand's  play,  Valere,  the  lover  of  Phila- 
minte,  decides  to  test  her  constancy.  He  accord- 
ingly sends  her  letters  purporting  to  be  written  by 
a  famous  financier  who  is  infatuated  with  her.  Phil- 
aminte  similarly  tests  Valere  by  having  a  profess- 
edly rich  lady  of  fashion  write  him  a  love-letter. 
Each  lover  answers  the  test  letter  so  favourably  that 
each  decides  to  put  the  other  still  further  to  proof. 
Valere  has  his  valet  Frontin  impersonate  the  amo- 
rous financier  at  the  same  moment  that  Philaminte 
has  the  maid  Lisette  impersonate  the  fictitious  au- 
thor of  her  letter.  Then  each  lover  gloats  over  what 
he  supposes  is  the  other's  favourable  reception  of 
a  masquerading  servant's  wooing.  When  the  ser- 
vants meet,  they,  like  Henrich  and  Pernille,  decide 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  215 

to  make  their  own  fortunes  by  marrying.  Before 
the  ceremony  actually  takes  place,  however,  the  real 
situation  becomes  clear  to  all.  The  servants  avoid 
matrimony,  while  Valere  and  Philaminte  are  recon- 
ciled. 

This  plot  is  like  that  of  Holberg,  not  only  in 
the  essential  feature  of  the  double  disguise  of  valet 
and  maid,  but  also  in  accomplishing  the  estrange- 
ment of  the  lovers  through  similar  impersonations 
by  the  servants.  The  emphasis,  to  be  sure,  is  dif- 
ferently placed.  Legrand,  whose  main  interest  is  in 
the  lovers,  devotes  but  one  scene  to  the  mutual  de- 
ception of  the  disguised  servants.  Holberg,  always 
bored  in  the  presence  of  lovers,  gives  Henrich  and 
Pernille  the  centre  of  his  stage  and  involves  Leander 
and  Leonora  in  their  deception  only  incidentally. 
All  the  comic  elements  of  Holberg' s  play  exist  in 
U Epreiwe  Reciproqiw.  His  rearrangement  of  them 
is  consistent  with  his  well-known  dramatic  prefer- 
ences. He  regularly  made  a  love  story  subordinate  to 
a  rollicking  game  of  disguise.  The  differences  in 
emphasis  in  the  two  plots  do  not  weaken  the  proba- 
bility that  U  Epreuve  Reciproqiie  is  the  direct  source 
of  Henrich  and  Pernille. 

Of  his  Pliitus^  Holberg  says  :  "The  impulse  for 
this  comedy  came  from  Aristophanes 's  Plutus;  but 
it  may  be  said  that  I  have  taken  almost  nothing  but 
the  mere  title  from  it.  My  play,  therefore,  may  be 


216  HOLBERG  AND 

called  genuinely  original."  *  Thisexplicit  statement 
has  naturally  been  accepted  as  final  by  all  biogra- 
phers of  Holberg.  Legrand's  Pliitus,  however,  re- 
sembles the  Danish  play  so  minutely  in  a  number 
of  details  that  it  apparently  served  as  a  definite 
model  for  it.  If  this  be  a  fact,  Holberg's  statement, 
to  say  the  least,  is  disingenuous. 

The  plot  of  Aristophanes's  work  is  in  outline  as 
follows :  Chremylus,  a  poor  but  honest  man,  enquires 
of  the  Delphic  oracle  whether  he  ought  to  teach  his 
son  those  vices  which  are  essential  to  the  accumu- 
lation of  riches.  The  oracle  answers  by  telling  him, 
inconsequentially  it  seems,  to  follow  the  first  man 
he  meets  on  leaving  the  temple.  The  man  thus  in- 
dicated proves  to  be  no  less  a  person  than  the  god 
Plutus,  whom  Zeus  has  stricken  with  blindness.  In 
bestowing  his  gifts,  therefore,  Plutus  gives  impar- 
tially to  the  just  and  the  unjust,  until  his  sight  is 
restored  by  Aesculapius. Then  he  makes  the  deserv- 
ing rich  and  the  undeserving  poor.  After  the  com- 
plaints of  several  of  those  who  have  suffered  from 
the  god's  wise  discrimination  have  been  heard,  a 
mob  of  delighted  citizens,  led  by  the  priest  of  Zeus, 
decides  to  pull  the  king  of  gods  and  men  down  from 
his  seat  and  to  elevate  Plutus  in  his  stead. 

Holberg's  play  is  like  this  only  in  its  most  gen- 
eral features.  Plutus,  his  sight  already  restored  by 
Aesculapius,  visits  a  city  which  has  hitherto  been 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  217 

poverty-stricken.  All  the  citizens,  except  the  sage 
Diogenes,  are  overjoyed  at  his  arrival,  and  one  after 
another  besieges  him  with  prayers  for  his  gifts.  By 
the  character  of  these  petitions  Holberg  satirizes 
the  abuses  and  follies  of  his  own  Danish  society. 
These  blemishes  the  god  seeks  to  remedy,  both 
by  his  severe  arraignments  of  fraud  and  hypocrisy, 
and  by  the  just  disposal  of  his  gifts.  Later,  Penia, 
the  goddess  of  poverty,  appears  with  Plutus  before 
the  city  council  to  debate  at  length  the  comparative 
value  of  their  gifts  to  the  city.  After  much  excited 
comment,  the  council  decides  in  favour  of  Plutus 
and  decrees  Penia 's  banishment.  But  the  undisputed 
sway  of  the  god  of  wealth  soon  corrupts  the  entire 
community.  Jupiter,  pained  at  the  general  deterio- 
ration of  the  city,  descends  from  Olympus  to  lead 
away  Plutus,  once  more  stricken  with  blindness. 
Then  follows  a  spectacular  procession  of  the  tri- 
umphant partisans  of  Penia,  with  which  the  comedy 
ends. 

None  of  the  details  of  this  work  are  like  any  in 
the  Greek  play,  and  the  comic  spirit  is  completely 
different.  Aristophanes,  cynical  satirist  as  always, 
has  his  comedy  end  in  an  orgy  of  impiety  and  cor- 
ruption. Holberg,  no  less  anxious  to  show  the  sinister 
influence  of  money,  benevolently  sends  Jupiter  down 
to  tell  the  citizens  of  their  mistake  and  to  carry  off 
the  vexatious  Plutus.  Legrand's  play  is,  to  be  sure. 


218  HOLBERG  AND 

in  general  spirit  equally  unlike  the  Danish  comedy. 
His  moral  may  be  said  to  be,  "Money  brings  joy 
to  the  deserving."  In  several  details,  however,  his 
comedy  is  like  Holberg's. 

In  Legrand,  La  Pauvrete  and  Plutus  set  forth 
their  respective  merits  in  a  debate  before  two  of  the 
characters,  at  the  close  of  which  La  Pauvrete  is 
ignominiously  driven  out.  In  Holberg,  Plutus  and 
Penia  have  a  similar  spirited  debate  before  the  city 
council,  as  a  result  of  which  Penia  is  banished.  In 
Aristophanes,  although  Penia  pleads  her  cause  be- 
fore two  characters,  she  has  no  debate  with  Plutus. 
At  least  two  of  the  figures,  moreover,  who  come 
to  beg  favours  of  Plutus  after  he  has  regained  his 
sight  are  the  same  in  both  the  French  and  the  Dan- 
ish play.  In  Legrand,  Cistenes,  the  poorest  man  in 
Athens,  has  been  given  100,000  francs,  all  the  money 
that  he  needs.  Yet  he  is  utterly  unhappy  because 
his  neighbour  has  been  given  a  million.  Plutus,  after 
hearing  his  complaint,  indulgently  brings  his  por- 
tion up  to  the  desired  million.  In  Holberg,  Timo- 
theus,  like  Cistenes,  has  been  made  rich ;  but  his 
happiness  is  embittered  by  the  thought  that  his 
neighbours  too  are  to  become  rich.  He  accordingly 
begs  Plutus  to  let  all  but  him  remain  in  poverty.  The 
god  bids  him  mind  his  own  business.  In  Aristo- 
phanes, there  is  no  such  figure  as  Cistenes  or  Timo- 
theus,  nor  indeed  any  similar  line  of  petitioners.  In 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  219 

Legrand,  Filene,  a  younger  daughter,  humbly  begs 
and  obtains  money  from  Plutus  for  her  dowry.  In 
Holberg/'an  old  maid  with  a  long  nose"  makes 
a  like  request,  which  Plutus  benevolently  grants, 
sending  her  home  confident  of  an  early  marriage. 
In  Aristophanes,  there  is  no  such  figure. 

These  similarities  between  the  French  and  the 
Danish  plays  are,  in  themselves,  utterly  trivial.  Yet 
it  seems  hardly  probable  that  Legrand  and  Hol- 
berg,  each  independently  of  the  other,  should  have 
made  the  same  changes  in  the  Greek  comedy. 
While  Holberg  may  have  been  justified  in  assert- 
ing that  the  inspiration  for  his  play  came  from  the 
Plutus  of  Aristophanes,  his  source  was,  strictly 
speaking,  the  Greek  comedy  as  rearranged  by  Le- 
grand. The  fact  illustrates  the  secondary  and  super- 
ficial character  of  Holberg 's  knowledge  of  Greek 
literature. 

The  title  of  The  Fickle-minded  Woman  immedi- 
ately suggests  a  connection  with  Li' hresolu  of  Des- 
touches.  This  relation  seems  to  have  been  suspected 
even  in  Holberg 's  own  day,  for  he  takes  pains  to 
mention  the  fickle-minded  woman  as  one  of  the 
characters  that  no  one  before  him  had  ever  brought 
upon  the  stage.  *  Yet  he  knew  Destouches's  comedy. 
In  one  of  his  Epistles^  indeed,  Holberg  criticises 
Li  Irresolu  at  length ,  comparing  it  unfavourably  with 
The  Fickle-minded  Woman.  When  he  pronounces 


220  HOLBERG  AND 

his  play  an  original,  therefore,  he  feels  compelled  to 
add,  parenthetically:  "It  is  much  older  than  Des- 
tOLiches's  U Iiresolu.''''  This  statement  is  not  true. 
The  French  comedy  is  at  least  two  years  older  than 
his.  Although  Holberg  was  undoubtedly  sincere 
in  the  belief  in  his  originality,  the  similarities  be- 
tween the  two  plays  are  curious  enough  to  deserve 
notice. 

The  same  foible  is  satirized  in  both  comedies. 
Lucretia  in  Holberg  and  Dorante  in  Destouches  are 
both  subject  to  innumerable  changes  of  mind  and 
mood,  and  the  resemblance  between  them  extends 
to  unimportant  dramatic  circumstances.  The  irre- 
solution of  Lucretia,  for  example,  is  first  shown 
over  the  use  of  a  porte-chaise.  After  Henrich,  at  her 
command,  has  summoned  the  conveyance  for  her, 
she  suddenly  decides  to  walk.  Dorante,  too,  shows 
his  first  change  of  mind  over  a  coach  he  has  ordered. 
After  Frontin  has  the  carrosse  ready  for  him,  he, 
like  Lucretia,  suddenly  decides  not  to  use  it.  This 
similarity  seems  significant,  just  because  it  concerns 
so  unimportant  a  detail.  The  fickleness  of  each  is 
afterwards  systematically  shown  in  the  changing 
attitude  taken  towards  three  lovers.  Lucretia  has 
three  suitors  :  Eraste,  a  serious,  economical  youth  ; 
Apicius,  a  frivolous  fop,  happy  and  heedless  to  the 
verge  of  imbecility;  and  Petronius,  an  elderly  ped- 
ant. When  Eraste  comes  to  woo,  he  finds  Lucretia 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  221 

in  a  mood  of  irresponsible  gaiety ;  while  the  foolish 
Apicius  finds  her  in  the  gloom  of  religious  mel- 
ancholy. Lucretia  is  naturally  displeased  with  the 
character  of  these  lovers ;  after  numerous  fits  of  ir- 
resolution, she  finally  chooses  Petronius,  only  at  the 
very  end  of  the  play  suddenly  to  change  her  mind 
and  refuse  him.  Dorante's  volatility  is  shown  by 
similar  conduct  towards  three  girls,  not  unlike  Lu- 
cretia's  lovers :  Celimene,  whom  love  renders  "bien 
reveuse  "  and  vaguely  discontented,  is  similarto  the 
sober,  melancholy  Eraste ;  Julie,  whom  love  exalts 
into  a  state  of  frivolous,  careless  gaiety,  reminds 
one  of  Apicius;  and  Madame  Argante,  the  amo- 
rous mother  of  the  two  younger  women,  is  not  a  poor 
feminine  counterpart  of  the  pedant  Petronius.  Do- 
rante,  to  be  sure,  chooses  Julie  and  not  Madame 
Argante,  yet  he  is  no  better  satisfied  Math  his  deci- 
sion than  is  Lucretia  with  hers.  His  final  remark 
to  his  servant  is  the  famous  "  J'aurois  mieux  fait, 
je  crois,  d'epouser  Celimene." These  resemblances, 
both  in  one  or  two  curiously  minute  details  and 
in  the  general  form  of  the  plays,  would  hardly  be 
regarded  as  accidental  but  for  Holberg's  own 
assertion.  Without  questioning  his  veracity,  one 
is  justified  in  assuming  that  when  he  wrote  The 
Fickle-minded  Woman  ^  he  wrote  under  the  vague, 
unrecognized  influence  of  a  comedy  which  he  cer- 
tainly knew. 


222  HOLBERG  AND 

More  important,  however,  than  the  mere  fact  of 
these  similarities  is  the  clearness  with  which  Hol- 
berg's  distinctive  dramatic  methods  are  revealed 
when  they  are  thus  applied  to  a  problem  previously 
solved  by  another  dramatist.  The  simplicity  of  the 
action  in  U  Inesolu  seemed  to  Holberg  a  dramatic 
anomaly.  The  play,  he  complained,  was  merely  the 
expansion  of  one  long  scene,  in  which  Dorante 
wavered  over  the  making  of  but  a  single  decision. 
His  Terentia,  like  all  of  his  possessed  characters, 
was  made  to  show  her  irresolution  repeatedly.  In- 
deed, much  of  the  ridiculous  nature  of  her  foible 
lies  in  the  simple  fact  of  incessant  repetition.  Des- 
touches's  strict  economy  of  character  exposition, 
more  unconsciously,  but  no  less  sharply,  annoyed 
Holberg.  All  of  his  secondary  figures  were  made  too 
palpably  subservient  to  the  exhibition  of  Dorante. 
Holberg  always  refused  to  allow  the  strict  logic  of 
a  plot  to  restrict  unduly  his  treatment  of  character. 
In  his  best  comedies  he  invariably  tried  to  give  the 
illusion  of  reality  by  creating  numerous  secondary 
figures,  who  claimed  in  their  own  right  the  inter- 
est of  the  spectators.  This  dramatic  fulness  of  life, 
as  opposed  to  French  economy  in  the  presentation 
of  character,  may  almost  be  regarded  as  a  distin- 
guishing mark  of  Germanic,  as  opposed  to  Romance 
genius.  Like  Holberg,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  and 
Hauptmann  (in  one  of  his  latest  plays,  Die  Jiatten) 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  223 

show  their  interest  in  establishing  the  reality  of  even 
those  persons  who  are  by  no  means  essential  to  the 
progress  of  the  plot.  The  Fickle-mmded  Woman ^ 
then,  differs  from  L? Itresolu  largely  in  its  diffusion  of 
interest  among  a  number  of  characters.  Holberg  is 
plainly  as  much  concerned  about  the  torpid  Eraste 
and  the  volatile  Apicius  as  about  Terentia ;  and  he 
makes  the  return  of  these  two  youths  to  normality, 
as  a  result  of  their  association  with  the  fickle  girl, 
fully  as  important  a  centre  of  dramatic  interest 
as  the  woman's  incorrigible  indecision.  Holberg, 
moral  by  nature  and  conviction,  and  diffuse  by  na- 
ture, seems  to  display  his  quaHties  almost  defiantly 
when  a  comparison  is  forced  between  them  and  Des- 
touches's  restricted,  narrow  methods  of  presenting 
character. 

Holberg' s  relation  to  all  these  French  comedies  is 
clearly  much  less  important  than  his  dependence 
upon  Moliere  and  the  commedia  delP arte.*  Kxcept 
for  the  monotonous  method,  learned  fromBoursault, 
of  presenting  a  line  of  heterogeneous  grotesques, 
and  except  for  the  plot  of  Henrich  and  Permlle^ 
Holberg's  comedy  both  in  form  and  in  substance 
would  be  almost  exactly  what  it  is,  had  he  known 
no  French  comedy  other  than  that  of  Moliere. 

Holberg's  knowledge  of  French  literature  was 
not,  however,  limited  to  plays.  At  least  two  non- 
dramatic  French  works  gave  him  dramatic  inspira- 


224  HOLBERG  AND 

tion.  In  placing  the  scene  of  one  of  his  comedies  in 
a  lying-in  chamber,  he  was  simply  following  a  very 
old  and  popular  French  satiric  tradition .  The  birth 
of  a  child,  from  the  Middle  Ages  until  comparatively 
recent  times,  was  accompanied  by  social  formalities 
which  now  would  seem  extraordinary.  One  of  these 
forgotten  customs  demanded  the  attendance  of  all 
the  women  friends  of  the  accouchee  at  the  actual  de- 
livery. Later,  the  commeres  considerately  substituted 
for  this  inconvenient  attendance,  formal  calls  upon 
the  mother  immediately  after  the  child  had  been 
born.  The  conduct  and  the  chatter  of  these  visiting 
women  early  became  an  object  of  French  satire. 
The  first  to  ridicule  such  customs  at  all  memorably 
seems  to  have  been  the  author  of  the  popular  Qidnze 
Joyes  de  Manage.  La  Tierce  Joye,  which  describes 
the  anxieties  of  a  man  during  his  wife's  confine- 
ment, makes  fun  particularly  of  the  lavish  expense 
and  the  silly  talk  which  the  commeres  force  upon 
the  confused  family.  Other  satirists,  including  Guil- 
laume  Coquillart,  who  devoted  one  of  his  most  dar- 
ing works  to  the  tatde  of  these  women,  followed  in 
the  same  vein.  Of  the  later  satires,  the  one  most 
like  Holberg's  play  is  a  certain  once  popular  Recueil 
General  des  Caquets  de  P Accouchee.*  The  situation 
there  is  curious.  A  young  man  visits  his  cousin,  who 
has  lately  given  birth  to  an  infant.  After  he  has  ex- 
tended his  congratulations,  he  begs  her  to  hide  him 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  225 

behind  her  bed,  so  that  he  can  listen  to  the  twaddle  of 
the  women  who  are  to  call  during  the  afternoon.  She 
consents  and  arranges  a  comfortable  chair  for  him  be- 
hind a  curtain.  He  takes  his  seat,  when,  as  he  phrases 
it, "  toutes  sortesde  belles  dames, demoiselles  jeunes, 
vieilles,  riches,  mediocres  de  toutes  fagons"  come 
in  and  begin  to  talk.  They  are  distinguished  merely 
by  such  titles  as  "la  femme  d'un  conseiller"  and 
' '  la  femme  d'un  avocat. ' '  The  conversation  of  these 
women,  at  first  devoted  with  some  attempt  at  sys- 
tem to  subjects  like  politics  and  religion,  subse- 
quently deteriorates  into  mere  gossip. 

In  one  of  the  editions  of  the  satire,  there  is  a  fron- 
tispiece representing  the  lying-in  chamber  filled  with 
callers  and  the  man  listening  with  evident  amuse- 
ment to  the  chatter  of  the  women .  This  picture  might 
almost  serve  as  an  illustration  for  the  second  act  of 
Holberg's  Lying-in  C/z«/W(6e>r.  There  Corfitz,  the  old 
husband,  goes  into  his  wife's  room  to  talk  quietly 
with  her.  He  has  no  sooner  entered,  however,  than 
some  women  arrive  to  make  their  conventional  calls. 
To  escape  them,  Corfitz  crawls  under  a  table,  where, 
concealed  by  a  cloth,  he  is  compelled  to  sit  and  listen 
to  the  silly  prattle  of  Anne,  the  plumber's  wife,  Inge- 
borg,  the  tinker's  wife,  and  the  wives  of  other  trades- 
men. Corfitz,  crouched  in  an  awkward  position  and 
almost  suffocated  by  the  talk  he  unwillingly  hears, 
seems  to  be  Holberg's  humorous  equivalent  for  the 


226  HOLBERG  AND 

stiff  young  Frenchman,  who  sneers  behind  his  cur- 
tain. The  Danish  housewives  and  their  barselsnak 
are  obviously  like  the  French  women  and  their  eter- 
nal caquet.'Y\\&  essential  similarity  of  these  two  scenes 
leads  one  to  believe  that  Holberg  became  familiar 
wath  the  French  tradition  through  the  medium  of 
this  Caquets  de  T  Accouchee. 

Holberg  may,  of  course,  have  known  other  works 
on  the  subject.  We  have  already  noted  his  acquaint- 
ance with  the  old  Danish  Comedy  of  the  Count  and 
theBaron^  in  Avhich  there  is  a  little  incidental  ridicule 
of  the  customs  of  a  lying-in  chamber.  He  may  also 
have  known  Les  Qiiinze  Joyes  de  Mariage,*  where 
the  thing  held  up  for  ridicule  is  the  expense  in  which 
the  demands  of  the  nurses  and  the  incessant  eating 
and  drinking  of  the  commeres  involve  the  desperate 
husband. t  Corfitz  is  thrown  into  tragic  despair  by 
the  same  unreasonable  expenses.  While  he  grinds 
coffee  for  his  guests  to  drink,  he^confides  his  troubles 
to  his  friend  Jeronimus:  "One  wishes  coffee,  another 
green  tea,  another  tea  de  poco  or  de  peco  or  what 
the  devil  they  call  it — so  that  if  this  business  lasts 
much  longer,  I  shall  hardly  have  enough  money  left 
to  buy  a  cord  to  hang  myself  withal. ' ' 

In  the  next  scene,  a  maid  enters  to  demand  money 
for  this  and  for  that ;  and  when  Corfitz  thinks  that 
she  has  at  last  reached  the  end  of  her  almost  inter- 
minable list  of  expenses,  she  breaks  out:  "  Noth- 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  227 

ing  more,  except  twelve  crowns  for  Dantzig  brandy 
which  was  used  in  the  coffee  to-day  ;  four  crowns  for 
brandy  for  the  nurse,  who  has  been  ill ;  two  crowns 
for  sponge-cake  ;  one  for  apples ;  twenty  for  a  smell- 
ing-bottle." Whereupon  Corfitz  rushes  to  her,  and, 
putting  his  hand  over  her  mouth,  shouts,  "Stop, 
stop!  The  girl  is  surely  possessed." 

This  farcical  distress  is  clearly  an  expansion  and 
elaboration  of  such  satire  as  appears  in  Les  Qiiinze 
J oyes  de  Manage.  The  originality  of  Holberg's  play 
consists  partly  in  the  change  which  he  has  made 
in  the  traditional  emphasis.  He  himself  says  of  his 
comedy:  "My  seventh  play,  T^/?*?  Lying-in  Cham- 
ber^ is  an  attempt  to  show  in  a  series  of  humorous 
scenes  that  the  annoyances  to  which  women  in  child- 
bed are  commonly  exposed  are  more  intolerable  than 
the  pains  of  labour,"  It  is  the  woman  in  his  play, 
even  more  than  the  husband,  who  is  shown  to  be  the 
sufferer  from  the  irrational  social  custom.  Her  fatigue 
and  her  husband's  unjust  suspicions  combine  to 
make  her  almost  a  pathetic  figure.  But  Holberg  also 
shows  originality  in  his  substitution  of  individual- 
ized Danish  women  for  the  conventionalized,  name- 
less callers  of  the  French  satires .  That  part  of  the  com- 
edy which  amuses  and  delights  a  Danish  audience 
to-day  is  the  procession  of  various  sorts  and  condi- 
tions of  men  of  eighteenth -century  Copenhagen. 

Holberg  seems  to  have  read  Scarron's  Roman 


228  HOLBERG  AND 

Comique  with  much  interest,  and  transformed  one  of 
the  stories  in  that  collection  into  his  unusual  play, 
Invisible  Lovers.  Scarron's  Histoire  de  V  Amante  In- 
visible runs  as  follows.  Among  the  ladies  yv\\o  fall 
in  love  with  Dom  Carlos  d'Aragon  is  one  closely 
veiled.  Although,  in  giving  the  Dom  a  ring,  she 
shows  "la  plus  belle  main  du  monde,"  she  persists 
in  her  refusal  to  show  him  her  face.  Indeed,  she  still 
further  piques  his  curiosity  by  artfully  evading  him 
until  at  the  end  of  eight  days  he  hears  her  voice  mys- 
teriously calling  him  from  the  latticed  window  of  a 
great  mansion.  To  this  window  Dom  Carlos  returns 
day  after  day  to  worship  a  voice,  which  finally  con- 
fesses love  for  him.  The  lady  insists,  however,  that 
the  magic  time  for  revealing  herself  has  not  yet  ar- 
rived. The  gallant,  therefore,  only  redoubles  his  as- 
siduities, until  one  evening  four  masked  men  seize 
him,  bind  him,  and  take  him  willy-nilly  from  the 
mysterious  house  to  a  splendid  castle  far  from  the 
city.  Here,  after  being  magnificently  entertained  and 
housed  for  a  night,  he  is  led  the  next  morning  into 
the  presence  of  the  mistress  of  the  castle,  the  Prin- 
cess Portia.  Though  she  unmasks  her  beautiful  face 
and  confesses  herself  desperately  in  love  with  him, 
he,  faithful  to  his  fair  unknown,  will  not  return  her 
love.  He  is,  therefore,  again  blindfolded  and  cour- 
teously taken  back  to  Naples,  where  he  repairs  im- 
mediately to  his  latticed  window.  Dom  Carlos  then 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  229 

finds  his  lady  at  last  ready  to  reveal  her  face.  The 
ceremony  is  carried  out  in  a  romantic  spot,  and  he 
discovers  to  his  delight  that  she  and  the  Princess 
Portia  are  one  and  the  same  person. 

Holberg  has  made  this  fanciful  tale  a  kind  of 
setting  for  the  realistic  comedy  which  is  the  essen- 
tial part  of  his  Invisible  Lovers.  In  the  first  scene  of 
the  play,  Leander  recounts  in  long  narrative  speeches 
to  his  servant  Harlequin  an  adventure  almost  the 
exact  counterpart  of  that  of  Dom  Carlos.  He,  too, 
has  heard  a  charming,  angelic  voice  speak  to  him  in 
the  gloaming  from  a  latticed  window.  Because  his 
lady  has  persisted  in  remaining  veiled,  he,  like  Dom 
Carlos,  has  been  compelled  to  return  night  after 
night  to  pay  court  to  the  voice,  until  he  has  been 
seized  by  eight  masked  men  and  carried  to  "  a  beau- 
tiful bower."  His  experiences  there  have  been 
exactly  like  those  of  his  prototype,  and  although 
he  has,  with  equal  constancy  to  his  fair  unknown, 
refused  to  return  the  love  of  the  beautiful  enam- 
oured mistress  of  the  castle,  he  has  sought  to  assuage 
her  grief  by  giving  her  a  ring.  Thus  far  Leander 
describes  events  that  have  already  taken  place.  The 
rest  of  the  mysterious  adventure  is  presented  in 
dramatic  action.  When  Leander  returns  to  his 
masked  lady,  at  first  he  is  bitterly  rebuked  for  his 
inconstancy  in  giving  a  ring  to  another  lady;  then 
his  despair  arouses  pity  in  the  fair  unknown,  who 


230  HOLBERG  AND 

confesses  that  she  has  played  the  part  of  the  lady  of 
the  bower  in  order  to  test  his  constancy. 

So  far  Holberg  has  told  a  version  of  Scarron's 
tale,  but  apparently  only  to  ridicule  it.  He  represents 
Harlequin,  enraptured  by  his  master's  idealistic  con- 
ception of  love,  as  attempting  to  imitate  it.  The 
servant  suddenly  finds  Colombine's  eager  yield- 
ing to  his  lightest  Mdsh,  shocking  forwardness.  He 
scorns  her  frankly  physical  love  and  leaves  her  to 
ponder  over  his  high-sounding  phrases  about  the 
worthlessness  of  fruit  which  may  be  plucked  from 
every  tree.  He  has  no  sooner  turned  his  back  upon 
the  perplexed  and  frightened  girl  than  he  has  the 
extraordinary  luck  to  meet  a  heavily  veiled  lady. 
And,  when  he  begins  to  make  love  to  her,  he  finds 
to  his  joy  that  she  observes  scrupulously  all  the 
canons  of  spiritual  love  that  he  has  just  learned 
from  his  master.  He  immediately  pays  her  entranced, 
assiduous  court,  begging  her  but  to  show  her  face  to 
him.  After  making  him  swear  that  his  love  will  be 
eternal,  she  removes  her  veil  and  discloses  the  face 
of  an  ugly  old  hag.  Colombine  enters  in  time  to  en- 
joy his  predicament,  from  which  she  agrees  to  save 
him  through  marriage  with  her,  but  only  after  he 
has  sworn  to  give  her  shocking  matrimonial  liberties. 

This  farcical  imitation  of  a  formal  and  pompous 
master  by  his  servant  is,  as  already  indicated,  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  Spanish  gj'a- 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  231 

cioso^  and  of  his  descendant  who  first  appears  in 
French  comedy  as  the  Jodelet  of  Scarron.  To  the 
story  taken  from  the  Roman  Comique^  Holberg  has 
appended  a  travesty  such  as  Jodelet  might  easily 
have  acted.  Invisible  Lovers  is  thus  a  combination 
of  two  naturally  associated  elements.  Though  both 
are  found  in  the  work  of  Scarron,  they  are,  in  spirit 
at  least,  ultimately  Spanish.  Amusing  as  Holberg's 
play  is  now  and  then,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a 
rather  unsuccessful  experiment.* 

Holberg's  knowledge  of  miscellaneous  French 
works  did  not  modify  either  systematically  or  fun- 
damentally the  method  formed  largely  by  Moliere 
and  the  commedia  delV  arte.  To  general  comic  and 
satiric  traditions  of  French  literature  he  sometimes 
adhered.  When  he  borrowed  more  in  detail,  he 
either  transformed  his  material,  or  he  experimented 
in  the  manner  of  authors  who  were  unable  to  aid 
him  in  the  attainment  of  his  own  definitely  conceived 
satiric  ideals.  The  extension  of  our  knowledge  of 
Holberg's  sources  of  inspiration  ought  by  no  means 
to  diminish  our  respect  for  his  originality.  Although 
the  tools  with  which  he  constructed  his  dramatic 
edifice  prove  to  have  been  borrowed,  he  remains 
none  the  less  an  independent  workman.  He  always 
adhered  to  his  own  dramatic  purpose, — that  of 
writing  moral  satires  of  the  Danish  society  which 
he  knew. 


HOLBERG  AND  ENGLISH  LITERATURE 


CHAPTER  VI 

HOLBERG  AND   ENGLISH  LITERATURE 

ALTHOUGH  Holberg's  knowledge  of  French 
-^  ^  literature  was  undeniably  extensive,  it  was,  in  a 
sense,  less  intimate  and  vital  than  his  knowledge  of 
English  literature.  He  learned  to  understand  French 
life  by  reading  French  books  in  Paris,  while  he 
"thirsted  like  a  Tantalus  for  society. ' '  His  knowledge 
of  English  life,  on  the  contrary,  was  obtained  through 
happy  association  with  friends  of  his  own  age  at 
Oxford.  Indeed,  his  acquaintance  with  English  lit- 
erature seems  to  have  been  but  one  of  the  results  of 
his  enthusiastic  participation  in  the  diversions  of  his 
fellow  students .  The  comparatively  long  period  which 
he  spent  in  England,  at  an  impressionable  age, 
absorbing  English  culture  in  the  most  direct  ways, 
fell  in  the  midst  of  a  time  of  unusual  significance  in 
politics  and  literature.  During  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  England  was  forging  ahead  of 
the  rest  of  Europe  in  liberal  thought  and  literary  in- 
vention. It  would  have  been  surprising,  therefore,  if 
the  mind  of  the  Norwegian  youth  had  not  been  greatly 
stimulated  by  its  first  contact  with  English  ideas. 

Yet  the  account  given  in  Holberg's  autobiography 
of  these  important  years  is  very  unsatisfactory.  He 
treats  his  entire  visit  to  England  as  a  rather  hare- 


236  HOLBERG  AND 

brained,  youthful  escapade.  He  tells  us  that  he  and 
a  Danish  friend,  Christian  Brix,  after  landing  at 
Gravesend,  went  on  foot  to  London.  Even  on  this 
journey  he  knew  enough  English  to  manage  their 
affairs  and  to  serve  his  friend  as  interpreter.  From 
London  they  went  almost  directly  to  Oxford,  where 
without  delay  they  observed  the  formalities  neces- 
sary for  gaining  access  to  the  Bodleian. ' '  As  soon  as 
we  had  registered  in  the  university,  all  our  thoughts 
were  occupied,  not  so  much  with  copying  and  collat- 
ing manuscripts,  as  with  relieving  our  actual  want. 
My  companion  wished  to  teach  music,  and  I,  lan- 
guage ;  but  he,  God  knows,  was  no  more  an  Orpheus 
than  I  a  Varro.  We  derived,  therefore,  but  httle 
benefit  from  those  arts  in  a  community  where  people 
are  not  satisfied  with  the  mere  shell  of  things,  but  are 
accustomed  to  demand  the  kernel.  Consequently, 
we  lived  in  Oxford  for  three  months  so  economically 
that  we  ate  meat  only  once  every  four  days;  on  the 
other  days  we  had  to  be  satisfied  with  bread  and 
cheese."  This  enforced  economy  in  food  reduced 
his  companion  to  such  a  pitiful  state  that  the  two 
went  up  to  London  to  raise  some  money.  After  Brix 
had  obtained  funds  on  the  security  of  a  Norwegian 
friend,  they  stayed  in  London  for  a  month,  doing 
nothing,  according  to  Holberg,  but  eat.  Then,  when 
Brix  had  acquired  the  paunch  of  an  alderman,  they 
returned  to  Oxford. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  237 

When  we  were  again  in  Oxford, ' '  Holberg  con- 
tinues, "we  abandoned  our  former  solitary  way  of 
living  and  took  up  quarters  in  a  tavern  which  was 
especially  frequented  by  Oxford  students.  There 
we  quickly  became  acquainted  with  many  of  them 
and  with  some  we  became  good  friends."  This  inn 
seemed  a  grossly  objectionable  place  of  residence  to 
one  of  their  Scotch  friends,  who  insisted,  quite  prop- 
erly, that  a  tavern  was  no  fit  dwelling;  but  there  the 
Danish  youths  continued  to  live,  and  Holberg,  ap- 
parently to  justify  his  strange  quarters,  at  this  point 
breaks  out  into  long,  enthusiastic  praise  of  the  deco- 
rum and  sobriety  of  the  undergraduates, — an  ac- 
count, be  it  said,  strangely  at  variance  with  contem- 
porary English  descriptions  of  their  life. 

"We  had  a  merry  time  of  it  for  a  month  after 
our  return  to  Oxford,"  remarks  Holberg.  But  at  the 
end  of  that  time,  his  friend  Brix  was  summoned 
back  to  London  and  he  was  left  alone  "  in  a  state 
of  anxiety  and  perplexity .""  My  one  comfort  in 
my  abandoned  and   difficult  situation,"  he  adds, 

was  the  friendship  that  I  had  recently  formed 
with  some  Oxford  students.  They  continually  eulo- 
gized my  learning  and  good  qualities  and  talked 
of  my  skill  in  foreign  languages  and  music."  His 
friends  were  in  this  way  giving  him  professional 
advertising,  for  Holberg  evidently  made  his  living 
by  tutoring  in  these  two  subjects.  His  skill  as  a  flute- 


238  HOLBERG  AND 

player  seems  to  have  made  the  greatest  impression. 
He  tells  with  great  pride  how  he  was  jfinally  admitted 
to  the  Musical  Club,  an  association  of  amateurs, 
who  gave  a  concert  every  Wednesday .  "  In  this  man- 
ner I  passed  fifteen  months,  after  my  friend  had  left 
me.  During  all  this  time  I  lived  well,  even  sump- 
tuously, for  almost  every  day  I  was  invited  to  dine 
at  midday  and  in  the  evening  with  my  fellow  stu- 
dents, or,  as  they  call  it  at  Oxford,  'take  common' 
[«"cj  ....  I  confess  that  I  am  indebted  to  Oxonians 
in  many  ways.  I  can  mention  among  other  proofs 
of  their  kindness  and  generosity  toward  me  the  fact 
that  when  I  had  been  in  Oxford  almost  two  years 
and  was  thinking  of  going  home,  a  student  of  Mag- 
dalen College  came  and  asked  leave  to  talk  con- 
fidentially with  me.  He  then  begged  me  to  tell  him 
quite  frankly  just  what  the  state  of  my  finances  was 
and  promised  me  in  the  name  of  the  entire  College 
a  considerable  sum  of  money  to  defray  the  expenses 
of  my  journey."  Although  Holbergdid  not  need  to 
accept  this  generous  offer,  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  strik- 
ing proof  of  his  popularity. 

The  mention  of  this  act  of  generosity  leads  Hol- 
berg  to  a  short  discussion  of  both  the  good  and  the 
bad  qualities  of  Englishmen,  with  particular  refer- 
ence to  the  impression  he  made  upon  his  English 
acquaintances.  Of  peculiar  interest,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  his  later  drama,  are  his  remarks  about 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  239 

the  art  of  disputation  at  Oxford. "They  admired 
my  ready  wit  in  parrying  and  answering  every  ver- 
bal onslaught,"  he  writes,  "  because  the  English  are 
not  very  well  skilled  in  the  art  of  disputation.  .  .  . 
Continental  nations  devote  their  attention  entirely 
to  polemics  .  .  .  and  create  so  many  systems  and 
learned  journals  that,  with  their  aid,  they  gain  the 
appearance  of  possessing  information  about  every- 
thing. The  English,  on  the  contrary,  go  to  the  bot- 
tom of  things  and  therefore  make  slow  progress ; 
they  are  learned  before  they  seem  to  be.  In  my  own 
estimation,  I  spoke  Latin  haltingly  and  with  diffi- 
culty ;  but  the  English  thought  that  I  spoke  fluently 
and  well.  They  give  so  little  attention  to  that  exer- 
cise, indeed,  that,  of  all  those  that  I  met  at  that 
time.  Doctor  Smalridge  was  the  only  one  who  spoke 
even  tolerable  Latin.  Not  even  Hudson,  the  libra- 
rian, who  was  considered  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished philologists  of  his  time,  spoke  the  language 
well.  The  students  at  Oxford,  to  be  sure,  do  hold 
public  disputations,  but  they  proceed  so  awkwardly 
that  as  soon  as  they  see  a  strange  face  they  begin 
to  shake  and  perspire.  Presently  they  come  to  a  halt 
and  break  off'  the  thread  of  their  discourse  entirely 
for  shame  of  the  stranger,  who,  they  think,  has  come, 
not  to  listen,  but  to  ridicule." 

Formal  disputation  was,  nevertheless,  an  aca- 
demic exercise  rigorously  required  of  all  undergradu- 


240  HOLBERG  AND 

ates  at  Oxford  at  that  time.  Amhurst,  in  his  Terrae 
Filiiis*  burlesques  one  of  these  mighty  exercises  ; 
and  in  this  travesty  appear  many  of  the  set  phrases 
which  Erasmus  Montanus  loved  so  much  to  mouth, 
— ' '  probo  minorem, "  "  negatur  minor, "  "  distin- 
guendum  est  ad  tuam  probationem."  Yet  at  Oxford 
no  one  seemed  to  take  the  disputations  seriously. 
Students  inherited  syllogistic  strings  which  enabled 
them  to  go  through  the  perfunctory  public  dispu- 
tation with  the  appearance  of  mastery.  The  sensible 
English  attitude  toward  this  outworn  mediaeval  cus- 
tom may  have  confirmed  Holberg  in  his  disgust  for 
the  Continental  passion  for  it.  His  years  in  Oxford 
may  thus  have  played  an  important  part  in  estab- 
lishing a  mental  attitude  which  expresses  itself  in 
the  satire  of  Erasrnus  Montanus. 

"At  length  I  left  Oxford,"  Holberg  continues, 
"and  returned  to  London,  where  I  sedulously  went 
to  see  everything  that  could  be  seen  for  nothing. ' '  He 
gives  us  no  further  account  of  his  stay  in  London, 
except  a  circumstantial  narrative  of  the  conduct  of  a 
friend's  dog  at  an  Anabaptist  ceremony.  This  dog,  it 
seems ,  almost  j  umped  into  a  baptismal  font  to  retrieve 
a  woman  who  was  being  immersed.  After  exhaust- 
ing the  humour  of  the  incident,  Holberg  concludes: 
'  'At  length  I  boarded  a  Swedish  ship,  and ,  after  a  voy- 
age of  live  days,  landed  safely  and  in  good  condition 
at  Elsinore,  whence  I  walked  to  Copenhagen." 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  241 

Holberg's  account  of  his  stay  in  England  is  most 
disappointing  to  a  literary  historian  who  is  eager  to 
know  just  what  effect  his  sojourn  there  had  upon  his 
intellectual  and  literary  development ;  but  it  is  not 
necessary  to  invent  elaborate  and  subtle  reasons  to  ex- 
plain the  flippant  tone  of  his  narrative.  It  is  hardly 
likely  that  he  sedulously  avoided  a  serious  consider- 
ation of  English  life  in  his  autobiography  because, 
as  has  been  suggested,  the  relations  between  Eng- 
land and  Denmark  were  not  very  cordial  in  1726,  or 
because  Frederik  IV  had  never  been  to  England  and 
so  would  have  been  bored  by  hearing  much  about 
it.*"  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Holberg  does  not  tell  much  less 
of  his  stay  in  England  than  he  does  of  his  more  re- 
cent visits  to  France  and  Italy.  He  was  not  a  roman- 
tic poet,  who  believed  that  all  the  incidents  in  the 
history  of  his  soul  during  his  childhood  and  youth 
were  of  interest  and  importance  to  the  world.  His 
first  Autobiographical  Epistle  is  not  a  Wordsworth- 
ia.n  Pre/ude.  He  describes  his  youth,  as  any  humanist 
might,  whimsically  and  indulgently .  Until  one  attrib- 
utes tremendous,  hidden  purposes  to  his  autobiog- 
raphy, one  finds  it  thoroughly  natural.  The  author 
writes  as  most  Englishmen  and  Americans  of  middle 
age  talk  of  their  college  years. 

Fortunately,  Holberg  affords  us,  in  documents 
more  worthy  of  consideration  than  a  light-hearted 
series  ofreminiscences,  abundant  proof  of  his  admira- 


242  HOLBERG  AND 

tion  for  English  life  and  thought.  In  January,  1714, 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Danish  king,  soliciting  an 
appointment  to  a  professorship  in  the  University  of 
Copenhagen.  In  the  enumeration  of  his  qualifica- 
tions, he  gives  his  residence  in  Oxford  a  prominent 
place.  "On  my  own  initiative,"  he  says,  "I  stayed 
in  England  two  and  a  half  years,  entirely  occupied 
with  my  studies."  In  his  serious  moments,  he  re- 
membered something  besides  his  social  engagements 
and  the  antics  of  his  friend's  dog  in  London.  In  a 
brief  account  of  his  life  which  he  contributed  to  a 
short  history  of  Danish  literature  in  1722,  he  again 
emphasizes  the  importance  of  his  studies  at  Oxford, 
and  declares  that  "they  lasted  two  whole  years."* 
These  references  to  his  stay  in  England,  of  their  na- 
ture necessarily  slight,  were  both  made  a  good  while 
before  he  wrote  his  first  Autobiographical  Episde. 
They  show  that  when  Holberg  was  not  trying  to  be 
amusing,  he  looked  back  upon  his  years  at  Oxford 
primarily  as  a  time  of  serious  application. 

Later  in  his  life,  Holberg  expresses  keen  admira- 
tion for  the  conditions  that  stimulated  English  men 
of  letters."  In  Germany,  in  France,  and  especially 
in  England,"  he  says,  "where  one  may  say  any- 
thing that  occurs  to  one,  and  where  genius  is  bound 
by  no  shackles,  it  is  easier  to  display  keenness  of 
judgement  and  strength  of  genius  than  here  in  the 
North,  where  we  are  plagued  by  the  most  rigid  cen- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  243 

sorship,  as  a  result  of  which  an  author's  zeal  is 
cooled  and  the  point  of  his  wit  blunted.  For  this  rea- 
son, even  if  poets  and  philosophers  were  to  arise 
among  us  capable  of  rivalling  the  English,  they 
would  scarcely  reach  maturity." 

The  habits  of  English  thought  he  applauds  with 
enthusiasm.  He  extols  Englishmen's  candid  discus- 
sion of  religious  questions,  even  if  it  produced  a 
lamentable  impudence  in  opposing  revelation.  Their 
mental  processes  he  really  prefers  to  those  of  French- 
men. "The  English  do  not  comprehend  a  thing  so 
quickly  as  the  French, ' '  he  says, ' '  but  they  possess 
better  judgement.  They  talk  but  little,  but  what  they 
say  is  pithy  and  vital.  The  French  form  friendships 
hastily  and  as  quickly  break  them;  the  English  form 
them  slowly,  but  break  them  just  as  slowly.  The 
French  respect  most  their  superiors;  the  English, 
themselves.  The  former  are,  therefore,  better  citi- 
zens; the  latter,  better  men." 

It  is  not  strange  that  Holberg  should  think  that 
men  so  superior  in  character  should  produce  superior 
literature.  After  showing  the  esteem  in  which  let- 
ters and  scholarship  are  held  in  England,  by  citing 
the  extraordinary  honours  paid  to  Newton  and  Bishop 
Burnet,  he  concludes  :  "Since  learning  is  there  held 
in  so  great  honour,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Englishmen 
have  won  the  foremost  place  in  both  learning  and 
literature,  two  things  which  have,  as  it  were,  taken 


244  HOLBERG  AND 

up  their  abode  on  this  island . ' '  This  unreserved  state- 
ment is  extremely  significant.  It  means  nothing  less 
than  that  Holberg  believed  English  to  be  the  best 
of  all  modern  literatures. 

Holding  such  views,  Holberg  was  glad  to  think 
that  his  intellectual  nature  was  like  that  of  the  Eng- 
lish. He  says:  "It  is  believed  in  this  respect  that  I 
have  adopted  something  of  the  character  of  English- 
men. In  England  it  used  to  be  said  of  me, '  He  looks 
as  l^sic]  an  Englishman.'  I  pleased  them  and  they 
pleased  me.  And,  in  truth,  I  seem  to  be  a  remarka- 
bly faithful  copy  of  them  both  in  manners  and  in 
disposition . ' ' 

The  eflfect  of  English  thought  upon  Holberg 's 
historical  and  philosophical  writing  has  long  been 
recognized.  His  direct  references  to  English  docu- 
ments are,  indeed,  largely  to  books  of  history  and 
philosophy.*  Yet  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
Epistles,  in  which  most  of  such  references  appear, 
were  written  at  the  end  of  his  life,  when  his  mind 
was  engrossed  by  philosophical  speculation,  and 
works  of  pure  literature  are  mentioned  there  almost 
by  chance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  literary  ideas  of 
English  authors  exerted  as  vital  an  influence  upon 
his  essays,  satires,  and  comedies,  as  upon  his  other 
productions.  In  particular,  his  comedies,  to  which 
this  study  is  confined,  appear  to  owe  several  of  their 
most  distinctive  characteristics  to  English  literature. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  245 

The  contribution  of  Oxford  to  the  young  Dane's 
knowledge  of  contemporary  English  writings  must 
have  been  slight.  During  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  if  we  may  trust  the  critics  of 
the  time,  the  university  was  intellectually  stagnant. 
The  professors  were  indolent  and  made  but  little 
pretence  of  lecturing.  The  students  were  zealous 
only  in  ogling  and  toasting  women,  and  in  drink- 
ing deep  potations  to  the  true  king  over  the  water. 
Oxford,  indeed,  escaped  complete  intellectual  torpor 
only  by  her  championship  of  a  lost  cause.  Non-jurors 
determined  the  political  bias  of  the  place.  True,  the 
dons  and  fellows  did  nothing  more  heroic  than  wor- 
rying and  persecuting  any  dog  of  a  Whig  who  dared 
to  appear  among  the  undergraduates,  and  nothing 
more  insurgent  than  listening  to  sermons  in  which 
treason  was  expressed  in  transparent  ambiguities. 
Sacheverell's  sermons,  which,  when  delivered  in 
London,  overthrew  a  ministry,  was  the  sort  of  thing 
that  an  Oxford  congregation  expected  every  Sunday. 

Strangely  enough,  the  few  traces  of  Holberg  at 
Oxford  that  we  can  discover  now,  bring  him  into 
connection  with  the  non-jurors.  Holberg  tells  us 
that  one  of  the  first  of  his  acts  there  was  to  observe 
the  forms  necessary  for  obtaining  access  to  the  Bod- 
leian. In  the  Liber  Peregrinonim  Admissonim  of  the 
Library,  which  all  foreigners  who  used  the  books 
between  1683  and  1783  were  compelled  to  sign, 


246  HOLBERG  AND 

may  be  seen  the  oldest  authenticated  copy  of  Hol- 
berg's  signature.  The  name  of  his  companion  ap- 
pears first,  Christianus  Brixius^  JVidrosia^  JVorvegus^ 
1 8  Apr.  Anno  1 706  ;  and  following  it,  Ludovicus  Hol- 
bergiusy  Aforvegus,  18  Apr.  1706.*  One  w^ho  studied 
in  the  Bodleian  as  regularly  and  as  sedulously  as 
Holberg  f  apparently  did,  would  almost  surely  have 
become  acquainted  with  the  deputy  librarian,  the  an- 
tiquary and  sturdy  non-juror,  Thomas  Hearne.  Just 
before  Holberg  and  Brix  went  down  to  Oxford,  a 
countryman  of  theirs,  named  Francis  Bacche,  had 
been  working  in  the  Library.  He  had  been  a  friend 
of  Hearne's,  and,  as  is  evident  from  entries  in  the 
Englishman's  diary,  had  supplied  him  with  much 
valued  information  about  Scandinavian  scholar- 
ship. J  When  he  returned  to  London,  he  sent  Hearne 
a  letter,  dated  April  6,  1706,  in  which  he  expresses 
his  gratitude  for  the  favours  he  has  received  from 
the  librarian  and  promises  to  send  him  reports  of 
the  progress  of  letters  in  the  North,  in  return  for 
such  information  as  Hearne  can  send  him  from  the 
"fountain  of  Hterature."  §  It  would  hav^e  been  nat- 
ural for  Bacche  to  have  given  his  two  young  coun- 
trymen, who  went  down  to  Oxford  about  a  week 
after  this  letter  was  written,  a  note  of  introduction 
to  his  friend  Hearne,  and  this  he  seems  to  have 
done.  At  any  rate,  on  a  fly-leaf  of  Hearne's  almanac 
for  1706,  the  following  note  is  written  in  Holberg's 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  247 

hand  : ' '  For  Mr.  Francis  Bacche,  Danish  Gentleman 
at  Drammen  in  Norgue.  To  be  left  at  the  Crown 
House,  near  Royal  Exchange  in  London.  St0ems0e 
is  a  Sea  Harbour,  as  in  the  maps  is  called  Copper- 
wick. "  As  Olsvig  suggests,  this  note  is  undoubtedly 
an  explanation  of  Bacche's  various  addresses.* 

If  Holberg  really  knew  Hearne,  he  may  have  been 
received  in  the  inner  circle  of  the  most  stubborn 
of  the  Oxford  non-jurors.  Hearne  would  have  been 
likely  to  introduce  him  to  Dr.  George  Hickes,  who 
had  been  living  since  1696  at  Gloucester  Green. 
Although  Hickes's  precious  Thesaurus  had  been 
published  two  years  before  Holberg  came  to  Eng- 
land, the  elder  scholar  would  have  welcomed  an  ac- 
quaintanceship with  a  young  Scandinavian  at  any 
time.  Holberg  could  hardly  have  received  from  this 
group  many  ideas  which  influenced  his  comedies. f 
With  their  political  creed  he  probably  had  scant 
sympathy.  Yet  association  with  them  would  have 
given  him  a  keen  idea  of  the  fierce  chauvinism  of 
the  non-jurors.  No  one  could  have  lived  at  Oxford 
during  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  century  with- 
out realizing  the  bitterness  of  English  party  strife. 
The  absurd  screed  of  Gert  Westphaler,  Holberg's 
talkative  barber,  may  well  have  been  Holberg's  own 
satiric  comment  on  the  political  discussions  which 
he  had  heard  carried  on  at  Oxford.  "  There  are  four 
principal  sects  in  England, ' '  explains  Gert, ' '  Tories, 


248  HOLBERG  AND 

Wigs[5z<?],  Mannists,  and  Anabaptists.  .  .  .  The 
Tories  are  the  noblest,  and  they  always  take  the 
king's  part.  They  fought  for  King  James  when  he 
waged  war  against  the  Wighs  [dc] ,  who  rebelled 
under  the  leadership  of  Cromwell,"  etc. 

The  direct  literary  results  of  Holberg's  association 
with  the  university  were  probably  meagre.  Neither 
from  his  convivial  evenings  with  the  students  nor 
from  his  acquaintance  with  antiquarians  could  he 
have  gained  ideas  of  importance  for  a  future  author 
of  comedy.  Such  ideas  could  have  been  assimilated 
only  during  his  apparendy  long  sojourns  in  Lon- 
don. Of  course  he  went  to  the  theatres  there.  Plays 
are  not  "to  be  seen  for  nothing,"  but  the  theatre 
is  always  a  favourite  resort  of  lonely  strangers  in  a 
foreign  city,  no  matter  how  poor  they  may  be.  Be- 
sides, Holberg  must  have  possessed,  even  at  that 
time,  a  strong  interest  in  the  drama.  Only  such  plays 
as  held  the  stage  would  have  been  likely  to  come  to 
his  notice.  His  almost  complete  ignorance  of  Shake- 
speare can,  in  this  way,  be  readily  explained ;  for, 
although  a  few  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies  were 
played  in  garbled  forms,  his  comedies  were  seldom 
to  be  seen  then  in  London.  *  Holberg,  however, dram- 
atizes at  least  one  story  that  Shakespeare  had  treated 
before  him. 

The  plot  of  Jeppe  of  the  Hill  is  the  tale  of  Chris- 
topher Sly.  Jeppe,  like  him,  is  a  peasant  who,  while 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  249 

in  a  drunken  stupor,  is  carried  into  the  castle  of 
a  lord,  is  dressed  in  fine  clothes,  and,  on  awaking, 
brought  to  believe  himself  the  grand  gentleman  that 
he  seems  to  be.  The  story,  the  original  version  of 
which  is  found  in  The  Arabian  JVights,  appears  in 
the  work  of  many  European  authors  besides  Shake- 
speare and  Holberg.  Seven  versions  of  it  occur  in 
Elizabethan  literature  alone.  General  similarities  be- 
tween any  two  versions,  therefore,  are  of  no  impor- 
tance. Fortunately,  Holberg  tells  us  his  exact  source. 
He  took  the  plot,  he  says,  from  Biedermann's  Uto- 
pia. A  comparison  confirms  the  truth  of  his  state- 
ment. Yet  the  following  points  in  the  Danish  play, 
which  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  Utopia,  prove  to  be 
parts  of  the  history  of  Christopher  Sly:  (l)  Almost 
the  entire  first  act  of  Holberg 's  comedy  is  devoted  to 
a  dialogue  between  Jeppe  and  the  host,  who  urges 
him  to  drink  until  he  is  overcome.  In  Shakespeare 
fourteen  lines  are  devoted  to  a  dialogue  between  Sly 
and  an  irate  hostess,  which  ends  when  Sly  drops  into 
a  drunken  sleep.  No  scene  of  this  sort  appears  in 
the  Utopia.  (2)  Jeppe  makes  vulgar  and  downright 
love  to  the  supposed  wife  of  the  man  who  imper- 
sonates the  bailiflf.  "You  are  pretty!"  he  exclaims. 
"Will  you  sleep  with  me  to-night?"  Similarly,  Sly 
importunes  the  boy  who  is  pretending  to  be  his  wife: 
"Madam,  undress  you  and  come  now  to  bed." 
(3)  When  Jeppe  awakes,  after  his  revel  in  luxury, 


250  HOLBERG  AND 

to  find  himself  lying  in  the  barnyard,  his  first  shout 
is  :  "Stewards,  lackeys,  one  more  glass  of  sack  !  " 
Sly's  first  remark  when  he  awakes  in  the  lord's  bed- 
chamber is:  "For  God's  sake,  a  pot  of  small  ale!" 
And  the  first  servant  answers  :  "Will 't  please  your 
lordship  drink  a  cup  of  sack?"  These  three  inci- 
dents occur  in  other  versions  of  the  story  than  Shake- 
speare's, yet  it  seems  the  most  natural  place  for  Hol- 
berg  to  have  become  acquainted  with  them.*  The 
Taming  of  the  Shrexv  was  performed  twice  f  while 
he  was  in  England,  the  first  time  during  July,  1706, 
when  he  was  almost  certainly  in  London.  It  is  very 
likely,  then,  that  Christopher  Sly's  adventure  may 
have  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  dramatizing  a 
story  which  he  already  knew  from  Biedermann.  No- 
where else  is  Shakespeare's  influence  discernible.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  Holberg's  conception  of  the  purpose 
of  comedy  and  his  dramatic  practice  were  both  much 
more  like  those  of  Ben  Jonson. 

Jonson,  indeed,  is  theonly  Elizabethan  dramatist  to 
whom  Holberg  makes  direct  reference.  "In  certain 
sorts  of  comedy, ' '  he  says, ' '  the  ridicule  is  aimed  at 
no  country  or  society  in  particular,  but  is  directed 
against  the  world  in  general.  For  this  reason,  the 
comedies  of  the  Englishman,  Ben  Jonson,  and  of 
Moliere,  and  also  Hans  Mikkelsen's  heroic  poem,  are 
the  most  honourable  and  innocent  of  satires.  They 
castigate  and  amuse  at  the  same  time,  and  censure 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  251 

not  one,  but  all  faults,  not  those  of  one  country,  but 
those  of  all  mankind."'*  This  statement  is  of  pecul- 
iar importance  because  it  was  made  in  1722,  the 
very  year  in  which  Holberg  began  to  produce  his 
comedies  with  startling  rapidity.  It  is  further  sig- 
nificant because  he  Hnks  Jonson's  name  with  that 
of  Moliere. 

Volpone^  The  Silent  Woman ^  and  Bartholomew 
Fair  were  all  produced  while  Holberg  was  in  Eng- 
land.f  Whether  he  saw  them  on  the  stage  or  only 
heard  them  discussed,  they  might  readily  have 
stimulated  him  to  become  familiar  with  a  dramatist 
whose  spirit,  he  thought,  was  not  unlike  his  own. 
The  similarities  between  the  work  of  the  two  men  in 
plot  or  details  of  dramatic  device  are  negligible.  The 
real  likenesses  are  to  be  sought,  where  Holberg  him- 
self suggests,  in  the  general  character  of  the  satire. 
Jonson's  well-known  definition  of  a  "  humour ' '  de- 
scribes the  mental  obsession  of  the  central  figures  in 
almost  all  of  Holberg 's  comedies  of  character: 

As  when  some  one  peculiar  quality 
Doth  so  possess  a  man,  that  it  doth  dmw 
All  his  affects,  his  spirits,  and  his  powers 
In  their  confluxions,  all  to  run  one  way. 

Holberg's  characters  are  helpless  in  the  grip  of  one 
peculiar  quality.  In  The  Busy  Man^  Vielgeschrey 's 
humour  is  to  believe  that  he  is  overwhelmed  with 
work  ;  m  Honourable  Ambition^  Jeronimus's  humour 


252  HOLBERG  AND 

is  an  insensate  desire  to  get  a  title ;  Gert  Westpha- 
ler's  humour  is  an  uncontrollable  desire  to  talk;  the 
humour  of  Erasmus  Montanus  is  a  no  less  impetu- 
ous desire  to  display  his  skill  in  scholastic  dispu- 
tation;  in  The  Fickle-minded  Woman ^  Lucretia's 
humour  is  an  incessant  indulgence  in  the  woman's 
privilege  of  changing  her  mind  ;  and  DonRanudo's 
humour  is  his  pride  of  family.  These  figures,  like 
those  of  Jonson,  run  the  risk  of  being  crushed  out  of 
real  human  semblance  under  the  emphasis  placed 
upon  a  single  odd  trait.*  No  other  writer  whom 
Holberg  knew  conceived  comic  character  so  much 
in  his  manner.  Holberg  is  like  Moliere  in  showing 
his  characters  dominated  by  one  peculiarity,  but  he 
is  like  Jonson  alone  in  permitting  it  to  assume  the 
force  of  monomania. 

Holberg  and  Jonson,  furthermore,  had  the  same 
general  conception  of  the  proper  function  of  a  plot. 
They  both  believed  that  almost  its  sole  duty  was 
to  exhibit  various  aspects  of  the  slavery  of  an  indi- 
vidual to  a  single  dominating  characteristic.  Jonson 
invariably  presents  this  humour  to  his  audiences 
in  a  similar  way.  Before  the  central  figures  appear 
upon  the  stage,  some  one  describes  minutely  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  act  under  the  compulsion  of  their 
humour.  After  their  entrance,  therefore,  they  have 
nothing  to  do,  as  Mr.  William  Archer  cleverly  says, 
** but,  as  it  were,  copy  their  own  portraits." f  Hoi- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  253 

berg's  "humour"  figure  is  almost  always  preceded 
by  an  explanatory  description  like  those  in  Jonson ,  * 
It  has  no  sooner  been  completed,  usually  by  one  of 
the  roguish  servants,  than  the  character  himself  be- 
gins to  copy  his  portrait  with  astonishing  fidelity 
to  the  words  of  his  zany. 

The  appearance  of  the  central  character,  to  be  sure, 
is  likewise  anticipated  in  Moliere.  Yet  the  latter's 
method  is  more  subtle.  He  rather  establishes  the 
situation  of  which  the  comic  hero  is  to  be  a  part, 
and  the  states  of  mind  which  he  has  created  in  the 
other  characters,  than  anticipates  the  central  figure's 
every  action  by  minute  description.  Instead  of  dead- 
ening our  curiosity  by  preliminary  verbal  portraiture, 
he  is  at  pains  to  stimulate  it.  Tartuffe's  actions,  for 
example,  have  much  of  the  surprise  of  novelty.  The 
actions  of  the  "  humour  "  figures  of  both  Jonson  and 
Holberg  surprise  us  only  by  the  extraordinary  man- 
ner in  which  they  do  the  things  we  have  been  told 
to  expect.  Our  foreknowledge  of  them,  we  discover, 
is  a  kind  of  foreordination.The  relation  of  these 
comic  heroes  to  the  antecedent  description  of  them 
is  more  mechanical  and  minute  than  that  in  Moliere 
and  for  that  reason  demands  their  more  immedi- 
ate appearance.  The  essential  features  of  this  rela- 
tion between  portrait  and  subject  appear  again  and 
again  in  Holberg.  In  The  Fickle-minded  Woman ^  for 
example,  in  the  fifth  scene  of  the  first  act,  Henrich 


254  HOLBERG  AND 

devotes  a  long  monologue  to  a  description  of  his  mis- 
tress Lucretia.  In  a  dialogue  between  him  and  Pe- 
tronius  which  follows,  this  description  is  expanded 
and  illustrated.  Then  in  the  eighth  scene  of  the  same 
act,  Lucretia  promptly  appears  and  behaves  exactly 
as  Henrich  had  said  that  she  would.  The  nature  of 
figures  described  in  a  manner  thus  stereotyped  and 
final  had  of  necessity  to  be  one-sided  and  humorous. 
These  ready-made  grotesques  of  both  Jonson  and 
Holberg  can  undergo  but  one  sort  of  development. 
They  can  be  expelled  violently  and  abruptly  from 
their  humours.  The  object  of  the  dramatic  action 
of  both  writers  thus  of  necessity  became  to  drive 
"every  man  out  of  his  humour;"  and  the  meth- 
ods of  both  in  attaining  this  simple  object  were 
very  similar.  To  paraphrase  Miss  Woodbridge's 
able  analysis  of  Jonson's  method,  one  might  say 
that  his  dramatis personae  can  always  be  divided  into 
two  groups,  a  large  group  of  victims  and  a  small 
group  of  victimizers.  Inasmuch  as  his  sturdy  belief 
was  that  comedy  should  be  "such  a  scornful  pre- 
sentation of  folly  or  vice  as  might  deter  men  from 
falling  into  like  errors,"  his  victims  present  us  the 
follies  or  vices  chosen  for  castigation;  the  victim- 
izers exploit  these  faults  until  they  can  be  brought 
to  their  natural  end  in  exposure  or  ruin.  The  plots 
of  Jonson's  plays,  therefore,  become  a  mere  series  of 
practical  jokes,  devised  by  the  "  mischievously  or 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  255 

malignantly  active  "  victimizers,  to  be  played  upon 
the  "  more  or  less  helplessly  passive"  victims.  The 
play  ends  when  the  victims,  convinced  of  the  folly 
of  their  humours,  abandon  them. 

Holberg's  methods  of  construction  are,  in  general, 
much  like  those  of  Jonson.  His  characters,  too,  are 
divided  into  the  two  groups,  victims  and  victim- 
izers. The  first  group,  however,  is  diminished  to  one 
person.  This  reduction  is  valuable  dramatic  econ- 
omy. Jonson  is  forced  to  devise  a  plot  for  each  one 
of  his  eccentric  figures  that  will  first  display  his 
peculiar  habit  of  mind  and  then  suppress  it.  Hol- 
berg  has  to  invent  but  one  series  of  tricks.  His  plays, 
therefore,  have  less  surface  complexity ;  they  seem 
less  a  collection  of  monstrosities  brought  together 
by  a  designing  author.  Furthermore,  having  but 
one  "humour"  character  to  exploit,  Holberg could 
give  him  a  definite  social  setting.  He  learned  from 
Moliere  how  to  contrast  his  central  character  with 
the  sane  members  of  a  bourgeois  family.  His  prin- 
cipal figures,  therefore,  do  not  seem,  like  those  of 
Jonson,  dragged  forth  into  the  Hmelight  by  the 
dramatist's  zeal.  They  are  made  at  home  in  a  very 
real  world  before  the  victimizers  begin  their  strata- 
gems. Holberg  found  his  group  of  victimizers 
already  formed  for  him  in  the  servants  of  the  corn- 
media  deWarte.  Here,  as  in  the  work  of  both  Plautus 
and  Terence,  the  merely  exuberant  tricks  of  the 


256  HOLBERG  AND 

zanies  are  ostensibly  executed  for  the  definite  pur- 
pose of  accomplishing  the  marriage  of  the  amoroso 
with  the  amorosa.  Holberg,  in  retaining  this  plausi- 
ble motive  for  the  deceit  of  his  servants,  gives  their 
action  some  superficial  probability.  The  dramatic 
value  of  Henrich,  Pernille,  and  the  rest  really  lies  in 
the  part  that  they  play  in  forcing  the  "humour" 
figure  to  display  his  follies.  Yet  their  interest  in  the 
lovers,  whom  those  follies  are  keeping  apart,  gives 
their  intrigues  a  more  reasonable  animating  force 
than  sheer  envy  or  moral  zeal. 

In  these  ways  Holberg  modified  Jonson's  methods 
to  advantage.  Some  of  the  blemishes  in  his  work 
are  defects  inherent  in  the  type.  In  proportion  as 
the  humour  portrayed  is  a  mere  mannerism,  the 
comedy  deteriorates  into  farce.  Jonson  did  not  avoid 
this  danger.  The  action  of  Epicoene^  for  example, 
becomes  farcical  because  Morose' s  single  charac- 
teristic is  nothing  less  accidental  than  mere  aver- 
sion to  noise.  Similarly,  the  repeated  exhibition  of 
Gert  Westphaler's  talkativeness,  or  even  of  Rasmus 
Berg's  worship  of  academic  disputation,  soon  be- 
comes utter  nonsense.  Moreover,  the  lack  of  devel- 
opment in  Holberg's  comic  heroes  in  the  course  of  a 
play  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  ' '  humour ' '  figures. 
By  definition  they  have  but  one  mental  trait.  They 
must  be  displayed  in  all  the  crude  completeness  of 
their  obsession  until  they  become  convinced  of  the 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  257 

folly  of  their  ' '  humour ; ' '  then  they  will  abruptly 
discard  it.  It  is  all  or  nothing  with  such  figures ;  and 
their  all  cannot  become  nothing  by  nice  gradations. 
Holberg's  servants,  too,  undergo  no  real  develop- 
ment ;  but  their  rigidity  is  due  to  a  different  cause. 
Henrich,  Pernille,  and  Arv  fail  to  develop  because 
they  are  descendants  of  Italian  figures  whose  na- 
tures were  unalterably  fixed  at  their  first  appearance 
by  their  costumes  ;  his  Jeronimuses,  Erasmuses,  and 
Gerts  fail   similarly,  because  they  are  essentially 

humour ' '  characters. 

It  is,  of  course,  possible  to  assert  that  the  general 
similarities  in  the  methods  of  the  two  dramatists  are 
not  so  much  the  result  of  Holberg's  actual  study  of 
Jonson  as  of  a  natural  intellectual  kinship  between 
the  two  men ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Holberg's 
comic  temper  is  not  fundamentally  like  that  of  Jon- 
son. He  preaches  most  often  on  the  text,  "Don't  be 
a  fool;  "  Jonson  on  the  text,  "Don't  be  a  knave." 
He  has  not,  like  the  Englishman,  an  "armed  and 
resolved  hand "  "to  strip  the  ragged  follies  of  the 
time"  and  "lash  them  with  a  whip  of  steel."  Jon- 
son is  full  of  saeva  indignatio;  Holberg  of  amused 
humanitas.  And  this  comic  temper  of  Holberg  is 
related,  we  shall  find,  to  that  of  one  of  the  greatest 
of  English  humanists.  It  seems,  therefore,  more 
probable  that  Holberg's  likenesses  to  Jonson  are 
the  result  of  conscious  imitation. 


258  HOLBERG  AND 

Of  Restoration  comedy  in  its  broadest  sense,  that 
which  remained  faithful  to  the  principles  of  Jon- 
son  is  most  clearly  related  to  Holberg's  work.  Even 
when  the  popularity  of  the  school  of  Etherege  and 
Congreve  was  at  its  height,  there  were  authors  who 
continued  to  write  in  the  manner  of  Jonson.  Men 
like  Shadwell  did  English  literature  a  service  of  last- 
ing value  by  preventing  comedy  from  committing 
itself  unequivocally  to  the  portrayal  of  the  artificial 
life  of  a  coterie.  But  it  was  not  until  the  early  years 
of  the  eighteenth  century  that  the  revolt  against 
this  sort  of  comedy  assumed  the  proportions  of  a 
definite  literary  tendency.  The  reaction  manifested 
itself  in  two  ways :  first,  in  the  invention  of  the 
so-called  sentimental  comedy ;  secondly,  in  a  revival 
of  interest  in  Jonsonian  drama.  Jonson' s  own  plays 
were  frequently  presented  ;  Shadwell  enjoyed  a  new 
popularity  ;  and  Steele,  even  in  his  sentimental  com- 
edies, expended  much  of  his  dramatic  effort  on  the 
delineation  of  characters  which  may  fairly  be  called 
"humorous."  In  The  Tender  Husband^  for  exam- 
ple, Biddy  Tipkin,  whose  head  has  been  turned  by 
an  over-zealous  reading  of  romances,  her  maiden 
aunt,  and  Humphrey  Gubbin,  the  obvious  prototype 
of  Tony  Lumpkin,  are  all  figures  of  this  sort.  It  was 
George Farquhar,  however,  who  gave  the  most  vital 
and  original  expression  to  the  liberating  movement. 
His  work  belongs  to  the  Jonsonian  tradition,  not  so 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  259 

much  because  it  is  "humour"  comedy,  as  because 
it  portrays  the  great  world  of  England  completely 
beyond  the  influence  of  London  society.  The  larger 
scope  of  his  comic  interest  is  shown  most  clearly  in 
his  last  two  plays,  The  Recruiting  Officer  and  The 
Beaux'  -S'^rato^em,  produced  for  the  first  time  in  1706 
and  1707  respectively.  In  these  comedies,  as  Mr. 
William  Archer  says,  "Farquhar  introduced  us  to 
the  life  of  the  inn,  the  market-place,  and  the  manor- 
house.  He  showed  us  the  squire,  the  justice,  the  inn- 
keeper, the  highwayman,  the  recruiting  sergeant, 
the  charitable  lady,  the  country  belle,  the  cham- 
bermaid, and  half  a  score  of  excellent  rustic  types. 
He  introduced  the  picaresque  element  into  English 
comedy,  along  with  a  note  of  sincere  and  original 
observation."  * 

Almost  every  word  of  this  criticism  of  Farquhar 
applies  equally  well  to  the  sort  of  plays  that  Hol- 
berg  wrote.  It  was  precisely  this  extensive  range 
in  his  original  observation  that  distinguishes  his 
work  sharply  from  that  of  Moliere.  In  no  dramatist 
of  the  Continent  whom  Holberg  had  read,  could  he 
have  found  a  similar  attempt  to  make  the  scope  of 
comedy  truly  national.  Farquhar  may  well  have  in- 
spired all  his  efforts  to  make  the  bounds  of  his  own 
work  as  wide  as  Denmark  itself;  and  we  know  that 
he  was  well  acquainted  with  some  of  Farquhar's 
dramas.  He  not  only  refers  directly  to  The  Recruit- 


260  HOLBERG  AND 

mg  Officer,  a  play  which  was  performed  during  his 
stay  in  England,  but  he  makes  Kite's  device  for 
impressing  Costar  Pearmain  and  Thomas  Apple- 
ton  serve  as  the  denouement  oi  Erasmus  Montanus* 
Holberg  clearly  returned  to  Denmark  with  an  accu- 
rate memory  of  at  least  one  of  Farquhar's  plays; 
and  the  nature  of  his  own  production  makes  it  prob- 
able that  it  was  not  so  much  the  mere  plot  of  The 
Jiecruiting  Officer  that  he  admired,  as  the  general 
character  of  Farquhar's  art  and  method.  It  is  not 
perhaps  too  much  to  say  that  Holberg  consciously 
performed  the  same  service  for  Denmark  that  Eng- 
Hshmen  Hke  Farquhar  began  to  perform  for  England 
in  the  early  eighteenth  century. 

For  the  comedy  against  which  the  works  of  Far- 
quhar were  in  part  a  revolt  (that  is,  for  the  comedy 
of  men  like  Etherege,  Wycherley,  and  Congreve) 
Holberg  had  scant  respect.  In  his  Epistle  No.  241, 
he  states  that  when  the  National  Theatre  reopened, 
he  read  for  a  second  time  a  number  of  English 
comedies  to  see  if  any  of  them  were  suitable  for 
the  Danish  stage.  He  found  them,  he  says,  "too 
obscure  and  too  full  of  difficult  and  high-flown  ex- 
pressions, which  at  first  glance  one  cannot  under- 
stand. Instead  of  saying,  for  example,  '  She  hates 
him  like  death,'  they  say,  'She  hates  him  worse 
than  a  Quaker  hates  a  parrot,  or  than  a  fishmon- 
ger hates  a  hard  frost.'  Instead  of  saying,  'They 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  261 

scolded  and  sputtered  at  each  other,'  they  say, 
'  Sputtering  at  each  other  like  two  roasting  apples . '  " 
The  examples  are  both  taken  from  the  speeches 
of  Witwoud  in  Congreve's  The  Way  of  the  World. 
Holberg's  choice  of  these  purposely  laboured  com- 
parisons for  censure  shows  how  completely  he  failed 
to  understand  Congreve's  satire  of  a  spurious  wit 
in  Witwoud.  The  subtle  characterization  and  the 
verbal  jesting  of  the  best  Restoration  drama  natu- 
rally escaped  a  foreigner.  Such  plays  would  seem  to 
him,  as  he  remarks  elsewhere,  "to  lack  that  festive 
nature  which  is  the  very  soul  of  comedy." 

Holberg's  work  is  absolutely  unlike  this  sort  of 
comedy.  The  tone  of  Restoration  drama  is  at  the 
best  unmoral ;  the  tone  of  his  plays  is  confessedly 
moral  and  didactic.  The  ridicule  of  the  one  is  di- 
rected against  the  coterie,  a  charmed  social  set ;  of 
the  other,  against  peasants  and  middle-class  citizens. 
The  one  is  comedy  of  dialogue,  of  interchange  of 
wit;  the  other  of  situation,  of  hearty  humour.  The 
one  is  full  of  the  obscenity  of  rakes  and  debauchees  ; 
the  other  of  the  coarseness  of  full-blooded  country- 
men. The  satire  of  one  is  exquisite  and  delicate  to 
the  vanishing-point ;  that  of  the  other  is  insistent 
and  obvious  to  the  point  of  tedium.  Restoration  com- 
edy concerns  profligate  manners ;  Holberg's  is  moral 
comedy  of  character. 

In  spite  of  these  essential  and  fundamental  dif- 


262  HOLBERG  AND 

ferences  between  the  two  sorts  of  drama,  certain 
minor  and  insignificant  similarities  between  them 
have  been  suggested.  Holberg  often  ends  his  plays 
with  some  doggerel  in  which  the  moral  lesson  of 
the  action  is  made  clear  to  the  spectators.  These 
verses  usually  begin  with  some  such  line  as,  ' '  From 
this  our  play,  we  can  observe  and  learn ;  "  or  "  From 
this  adventure,  we,  courteous  sirs,  may  learn."  * 
The  authors  of  Restoration  comedy  had  a  similar 
dramatic  mannerism.  Etherege,  Wycherley,  Con- 
greve,  Vanbrugh,  and  even  Shadwell,  Steele,  and 
Gibber,  usually  close  their  prose  comedies  with  a  bit 
of  doggerel  verse.  Like  the  similar  rhyme  tags  in 
Elizabethan  drama,  it  serves  merely  as  rhetorical 
punctuation,  a  plaudite.  The  concluding  lines  of 
Etherege 's  Sir  Fopling  Flutter  answer  this  purpose. 
There  old  Bellair  turns  to  the  pit  and  says : 

And  if  these  honest  gentlemen  rejoice, 
Adod,  the  boy  has  made  a  happy  choice. 

Congreve  alone  of  the  Restoration  comic  writers 
consistently  makes  his  tags  like  those  of  Holberg, 
a  moral  sign-post  upon  which  to  scrawl  the  lesson 
to  be  learned  from  the  action  just  completed.  The 
doggerel  at  the  end  of  both  The  Double  Dealer'  and 
The  Way  of  the  World  \s  of  this  ostensibly  edifying 
sort. "Let  secret  villainy  from  hence  be  warned" 
begins  the  rhyme  appended  to  the  first  of  the  two 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  263 

plays;  and  after  the  careless,  unmoral  frivolities  of 
The  Way  of  the  Worlds  we  are  addressed  as  follows : 

From  hence  let  those  be  warned  who  mean  to  wed ; 
Lest  mutual  falsehood  stain  the  marriage-bed  ; 
For  each  deceiver  to  his  cost  may  find, 
That  marriage  frauds  too  oft  are  paid  in  kind. 

Holberg's  moral  verses  were  perhaps  his  adaptations 
of  Congreve's  doggerel  maxims  of  worldly  pru- 
dence. 

On  the  whole,  however,  Holberg's  work  is  radi- 
cally different  from  English  Restoration  drama  and 
owes  little  to  it.  To  sentimental  comedy,  such  as 
was  written  by  Cibber  and  Steele,  Holberg  was  con- 
stitutionally hostile.  I  have  already  mentioned  his 
scorn  of  the  derived  sentimental  plays  of  Destouches. 
A  writer  intent  upon  provoking  the  maximum  of 
laughter  naturally  had  little  in  common  with  dram- 
atists whose  primary  assumption  was  that  their 
audiences  wanted  to  cry.  Yet  Holberg's  audiences 
would  have  responded  readily  to  the  appeal  of 
sentimental  drama.  He  himself  tells  us  that  they 
were  often  reduced  to  tears  by  his  Melampe.  The 
mock-heroic  expression  of  the  farcical  emotion 
which  Philocyne  felt  for  her  lost  dog  seemed  to 
them  deeply  affecting.  How  easily  a  dramatist  might 
have  exploited  tears  as  ready  as  these  !  Yet  Holberg 
never  once  forsook  his  reasonable  humanism  for 
shallow  appeals  to  superficial  emotion. 


264  HOLBERG  AND 

The  influences  of  English  conceptions  of  drama 
upon  Holberg's  art  above  mentioned  are,  one  must 
confess,  not  demonstrable.  Yet  the  absence  of  simi- 
larities of  detail  between  his  work  and  English  com- 
edy ought  not  to  bring  into  serious  doubt  the  funda- 
mental relation  between  the  two.  The  dependence 
of  the  intellectual  attitude  of  one  man  upon  that  of 
another  can  hardly  be  established  by  direct  evi- 
dence. Fortunately,  the  circumstantial  evidence  so 
far  adduced  to  prove  this  intangible  influence  is,  I 
believe,  corroborated  by  direct  evidence  of  the  in- 
fluence of  certain  non-dramatic  English  literature 
upon  his  comedies.  Some  of  the  essays  in  The  Tat- 
ler  probably  suggested  to  Holberg  the  plots  of  The 
Political  Tinker. 

In  this  play,  Hermann  von  Bremen,  an  honest 
tinker  of  Hamburg,  has  become  absorbed  in  politics, 
to  the  neglect  of  all  his  normal  duties.  The  first  act 
shows  us  the  corr^plications  that  his  infatuation  has 
produced.  It  opens  with  a  conversation  between  An- 
tonius,  the  lover  of  Hermann's  daughter,  and  Hen- 
rich,  the  tinker's  roguish  servant.  From  the  latter 
Antonius  learns  that  he  has  no  chance  of  gaining 
Hermann's  consent  to  his  marriage,  unless  he  ad- 
dress him  in  a  petition  couched  in  the  most  formal 
diplomatic  language.  While  the  lover  is  pondering 
over  this  disconcerting  piece  of  news,  the  tinker  en- 
ters and  confirms  his  servant's  words  by  refusing 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  265 

to  consider  Antonius  as  a  son-in-law  unless  he  will 
agree  to  devote  his  life  to  a  study  of  politics,  —  a 
subject  best  mastered,  he  thinks,  by  reading  certain 
German  manuals,  particularly  one  entitled  The 
Political  Dessert.  Antonius  refuses  the  demand  and  is 
contemptuously  dismissed.  Then  Geske,  the  tink- 
er's wife,  enters.  Her  naturally  high  temper  has  been 
made  shrewish  by  her  husband's  neglect  of  busi- 
ness. She  tries  desperately  to  pacify  customers  who 
find  pots  and  pans  left  weeks  ago  still  unmended. 
After  they  have  gone  off  grumbling,  Henrich  takes 
occasion  to  describe  the  club  of  which  Hermann  is 
a  member.  The  twelve  artisans  who  have  formed 
what  they  call  a  Collegium  Politiciim  are  to  meet  on 
this  particular  night  at  Hermann's  house. 

The  second  act  is  devoted  to  this  meeting  of  the 
Collegium  Politician  .*  T\\t  tradesmen  enter  solemnly 
to  take  their  seats  around  a  table  covered  with  mugs 
of  ale  and  long  tobacco-pipes.  "  Where  was  it  that 
we  stopped  last  time?"  begins  Hermann,  who  ap- 
pears to  be  the  presiding  officer. ' '  With  the  interests 
of  Germany,"  replies  Richard  Brushmaker.  Then 
they  begin  to  make  all  sorts  of  absurd  political  pro- 
posals. They  find  it  ridiculous  that  Vienna  has  no 
fleet  in  its  harbour,  when  there  are  so  many  good 
pine  trees  in  Austria  and  Prague.  A  suggestion  that 
Paris  ought  to  have  a  similar  fleet  drives  the  poli- 
ticians to  consult  an  atlas.  Even  then  they  are  un- 


266  HOLBERG  AND 

able  to  decide  with  unanimity  whether  the  city  is 
a  seaport  or  not.  A  shrewish  interruption  by  Geske 
at  this  point  leads  one  of  the  radical  members  to  pro- 
pose that  marriage  be  made  a  mere  contract,  bind- 
ing only  for  a  stated  term  of  years.  After  this  excur- 
sion into  the  domain  of  private  law,  someone  brings 
in  the  last  copy  of  a  newspaper,  in  order  to  keep  the 
discussion  practical.  One  of  the  members,  therefore, 
begins  to  read  the  vapid  conjectures  which  passed  for 
news  in  those  days.  "Word  comes  from  the  chief 
camp  on  the  Rhine, ' '  he  reads, ' '  that  recruits  are  ex- 
pected. .  .  .  Itis  reported  from  Italy  that  Prince  Eu- 
gene has  broken  camp,  traversed  the  river  Padus." 
These  pieces  of  information  rouse  the  artisans  to 
violent  expressions  of  opinion.  ' '  Oh,  oh ! "  exclaims 
Hermann, ' '  his  Highness  is  stricken  with  blindness ! 
We  are  done  for!  I  wouldn't  give  fourpence  for 
the  whole  army  in  Italy."  The  furrier  agrees  vehe- 
mently with  the  military  strategy  of  Eugene,  and 
the  meeting  breaks  up  in  a  heated  discussion  in 
which  all  the  members  of  the  Collegium  Politicum 
participate. 

The  first  two  acts  thus  contain  Holberg's  cus- 
tomary exposition  of  the  character  of  the  central 
figure  as  it  appears  in  the  midst  of  his  definitely 
established  peasant  family.  The  remaining  acts  are 
devoted  to  the  invention  and  the  execution  of  an 
elaborate  hoax  intended  to  convince  Hermann  that 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  267 

his  political  assumptions  are  supremely  foolish.  Two 
gentlemen  of  Hamburg,  having  decided  that  the 
tinker's  pretensions  would  vanish  were  he  given  a 
shadow  of  political  responsibility,  persuade  him  that 
he  has  been  chosen  Mayor  of  Hamburg.  Hermann's 
ludicrous  attempts  to  master  the  social  usages  be- 
fitting his  exalted  station,  and  his  complete  failure 
to  decide  some  legal  questions  which  are  fabricated 
for  him  to  answer,  cure  him  of  his  desire  to  meddle 
in  politics.  After  gladly  promising  his  daughter  to 
Antonius,  he  ends  the  play  by  exclaiming  to  Hen- 
rich  :  ' '  Burn  up  all  my  political  books !  I  cannot 
bear  to  see  the  things  that  have  brought  me  to  such 
folly." 

Though  the  fact  has  not,  I  believe,  been  noted 
before,  it  is  clear  that  the  situation  described  in 
the  first  part  of  this  comedy  was  suggested  by  the 
story  of  the  political  upholsterer  who  is  satirized  in 
The  Tatler^  Nos.  155,  160,  and  178,  as  follows: 

There  lived  some  years  since  within  my  neigh- 
bourhood a  very  grave  person,  an  upholsterer,  who 
seemed  a  man  of  more  than  ordinary  application  to 
business.  .  .  .  Upon  my  inquiry  into  his  life  and  con- 
versation, I  found  him  to  be  the  greatest  news-mon- 
ger in  our  quarter.  .  .  .  He  had  a  wife  and  several 
children ;  but  was  much  more  inquisitive  to  know 
what  passed  in  Poland  than  in  his  ow  n  family,  and 
was  in  greater  pain  and  anxiety  for  King  Angus- 


268  HOLBERG  AND 

tus's  welfare  than  that  of  his  nearest  relations.  .  .  . 
This  indefatigable  kind  of  life  was  the  ruin  of  his 
shop,  for  about  the  time  that  his  favourite  prince 
left  the  crown  of  Poland,  he  broke  and  disappeared. 
"This  man  and  his  affairs  had  been  long  out 
of  my  mind,  till  about  three  days  ago,  as  I  was 
^valking  in  St.  James's  Park,  I  heard  somebody  at 
a  distance  hemming  after  me :  and  who  should  it  be 
but  my  old  neighbour  the  upholsterer  !  .  .  .  Upon  his 
coming  up  to  me,  I  was  going  to  inquire  into  his 
present  circumstances ;  but  was  prevented  by  his 
asking  me,  with  a  whisper,  whether  the  last  letters 
brought  any  accounts  that  one  might  rely  on  from 
Bender.  I  told  him  that  I  hadn't  heard  of  any, 
and  asked  him  whether  he  had  yet  married  his 
eldest  daughter.  He  told  me  No.  'But  pray,'  says 
he,  'tell  me  sincerely  what  are  your  thoughts  of  the 
King  of  Sweden  ? '  For  though  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren were  starving,  I  found  his  chief  concern  at 
present  was  for  this  great  monarch.  .  .  .  We  were 
now  got  to  the  upper  end  of  the  Mall,  where  were 
three  or  four  very  odd  fellows  sitting  together  upon 
the  bench.  These  I  found  were  all  of  them  politi- 
cians, who  used  to  sun  themselves  in  that  place 
about  dinner  time. 

The  unfortunate  tradesman  had  for  years  past 
been  the  chief  orator  in  ragged  assemblies,  and  the 
reader  in  alley  coffee-houses.  He  was  surrounded  by 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  269 

an  audience  of  that  sort,  among  whom  I  sat  un- 
observed through  the  favour  of  a  cloud  of  tobacco, 
and  saw  him  with  The  Postman  in  his  hand,  and  all 
the  other  papers  safe  under  his  left  elbow.  He  was 
intermixing  remarks  and  reading  the  Paris  article 
of  May  30,  which  says  that  it  is  given  out  that  an 
express  arrived  this  day  with  advice  that  the  armies 
were  so  near  in  the  plain  of  Lens  that  they  can- 
nonaded each  other.  ('Ay,  ay,  here  we  shall  have 
sport.')  And  that  it  was  highly  probable  that  the 
next  express  would  bring  us  an  account  of  an 
engagement.  ('They  are  welcome  as  soon  as  they 
please.')  Though  some  others  say  that  the  same 
will  be  put  off  till  the  2nd  or  3rd  of  June,  because 
the  Marshal  Villars  expects  some  further  reinforce- 
ments from  Germany,  and  other  parts,  before  that 
time.  (' What-a-pox  does  he  put  it  off  for?  Does 
he  think  our  horse  is  not  marching  up  at  the  same 
time?  But  let  us  see  what  he  says  further.')" 

The  general  conception  of  this  character  is  like 
that  of  Hermann  of  Bremen  in  several  respects. 
The  political  upholsterer,  like  the  Danish  tinker, 
has  devoted  himself  to  political  vapouring  until  he 
has  neglected  his  business,  reduced  his  family  to 
poverty,  and  refused  to  allow  his  daughter  to  marry 
the  man  of  her  choice.  The  English  politician  belongs 
to  a  club  of  three  or  four  queer  fellows,  who  meet 
upon  the  benches  in  the  park  to  discuss  world  politics ; 


270  HOLBERG  AND 

the  political  tinker  belongs  to  a  club  of  craftsmen, 
pretentiously  named  Collegium  Politicum,  who  meet 
at  the  houses  of  the  various  members,  also  to  dis- 
cuss world  politics.  The  upholsterer  reads  foreign 
news  to  his  fellow  members  and  from  time  to  time 
makes  caustic  comment  and  bitter  criticism,  partic- 
ularly on  the  conduct  of  a  foreign  war  ;  in  the  same 
way,  Richard  Brushmaker  reads  the  political  news 
from  the  most  recent  newspaper  to  the  assembled 
Collegium  Politicum;  and  the  would-be  politicians 
interrupt  him  with  comment  of  exacdy  the  same  sort 
that  the  political  upholsterer  utters.  Not  only  are 
the  general  situations  at  this  point  in  the  two  satires 
practically  identical,  but  the  news  is  also  of  the 
same  sort ;  the  politician's  comments  are  of  the  same 
solemnly  stupid  tenor  ;  and  the  implied  satire  of  the 
news-sheets  is  of  like  nature.  A  comparison  of  the 
essays  in  The  Tatler  with  the  first  two  acts  of  The 
Political  Tinker  makes  it  almost  certain,  then,  that 
the  character  of  Hermann  of  Bremen  was  suggested 
by  that  of  the  political  upholsterer,  and  the  famous 
Collegium  Politicum  by  the  strange  assembly  in  St. 
James's  Park. 

Another  essay  in  The  Tatler  may  have  suggested 
the  general  situation  of  Erasmus  Montamis.  *  The 
following  extract  from  that  essay  is  the  part  signi- 
ficant for  our  purpose :  "  I  remember  a  young  gen- 
tleman of  moderate  understanding  and  great  viva- 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  271 

city,  who  by  dipping  into  many  modish  French 
authors  had  got  a  little  smattering  of  knowledge, 
just  enough  to  make  an  atheist  or  a  free-thinker, 
but  not  a  philosopher  or  a  man  of  sense.  With  these 
accomplishments,  he  went  to  visit  his  father  in 
the  country,  who  was  a  plain,  rough,  honest  man, 
and  wise  though  not  learned.  The  son,  who  took  all 
opportunities  to  show  his  learning,  began  to  estab- 
lish a  new  religion  in  the  family,  and  to  enlarge  the 
narrowness  of  their  country  notions.  Finally  he  said 
that  he  did  not  question  but  his  dog  Tray  was 
as  immortal  as  any  one  of  the  family.  .  .  .  Upon 
which  the  old  man,  starting  up  in  a  very  great  pas- 
sion, and  taking  his  cane  in  his  hand,  cudgelled 
him  out  of  his  system." 

Some  similarities  between  this  tale  and  the  plot 
of  Erasmus  Montanus^  as  reviewed  in  a  previous 
chapter,  undoubtedly  exist.  The  fundamental  idea 
in  both  satires  is  the  same.  A  youth  who  has  ac- 
quired in  the  intellectual  centre  of  the  nation  a  little 
knowledge  and  a  great  opinion  of  its  worth,  is  sent 
back  to  visit  his  family  in  the  country.  There  his 
ill-digested  ideas  come  into  sharp  conflict  with  the 
traditions  and  common  sense  of  the  countryside. 
The  result  of  the  conflict  is  that  his  stubbornly  held 
heresies  are  cudgelled  out  of  him,  in  one  case  by  his 
father,  in  the  other  by  a  recruiting  officer.  The  simi- 
larity between  the  dramatic  situation  and  the  Eng- 


272  HOLBERG  AND 

lish  anecdote  is,  of  course,  much  less  striking  and 
conclusive  in  this  case  than  in  that  of  The  Politi- 
cal Tinker.  Yet  the  convincing  nature  of  this  latter 
relation  adds  to  the  probability  of  the  former.  The 
definite  knowledge  of  these  essays,  which  Holberg 
shows,  is  important,  however,  not  merely  for  its 
own  sake,  but  for  its  larger  significance  in  making  it 
probable  that  the  subjects  which  Holberg  chose  to 
satirize  and  the  very  essence  of  his  satiric  attitude 
were  profoundly  influenced  by  a  sympathetic  study 
of  the  English  periodicals. 

Now  we  know,  from  frequent  direct  references, 
that  when  Holberg  composed  his  Epistles^  he  was 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  English  papers.  But  is 
there  any  external  evidence  tending  to  corroborate 
the  fact,  which  the  plot  of  The  Political  Tinker  stems 
to  establish,  that  Holberg  had  read  The  Tatlersind 
The Spectatorheiove  he  began  to  write  his  comedies? 
The  probabilities  of  such  an  acquaintance  are,  of 
course,  exceedingly  strong.  A  man  with  so  many 
English  friends  as  Holberg  evidendy  had  when  he 
left  Oxford,  possessing  besides  so  keen  an  interest  in 
English  literature,  would  inevitably  have  been  in- 
formed almost  immediately  of  the  appearance  of  the 
remarkably  popular  Tatler  and  Spectator.  He  would 
for  these  reasons  have  been  as  likely  as  any  man  on 
the  Continent  to  find  means  of  reading  them  as  soon 
as  possible.*  One  is,  indeed,  prompted  to  make  an 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  273 

obscure  statement  in  Holberg's  first  Autobiographi- 
cal Epistle  refer  definitely  to  a  reading  of  these  es- 
says. Speaking  of  a  time  when  he  suffered  from  ill 
health, — which,  by  a  simple  process  of  elimina- 
tion, can  be  fixed  as  the  years  1716-18,  —  he  says: 
For  two  whole  years  I  was  afflicted  with  pains  in 
the  head.  .  .  .  During  that  time  I  read  nothing  but 
histories  and  journals  YEphemerides]  .  But  when  the 
two  years  were  over  .  .  .  I  composed  my  heroic  poem, 
together  with  my  satires  and  comedies. ' '  Whatever 
these  Ephemerides  were,  if  Holberg  turned  almost 
directly  from  a  reading  of  them  to  the  composition 
of  his  comedies,  they  would  be  very  apt  to  have  some 
influence  upon  the  plays.  It  is  tempting  to  conjec- 
ture that  these  Ephemerides  were  the  English  peri- 
odicals.* To  what  other  literary  productions  of  the 
time  could  the  word  so  appropriately  refer  ?  It  would 
have  been  absurd  to  apply  it  to  the  learned  discus- 
sions of  theology  and  scholarship  which  appeared  in 
Thomasius's  Monatsgesprdche.  Although  it  would 
have  fitly  described  Der  Venmnftler\  the  first  Ger- 
man adaptation  of  The  Spectator^  made  in  Hamburg 
in  1713,  this  paper  had  so  little  influence  in  its  day 
that  it  was  forgotten  altogether  by  scholars  until 
a  few  years  ago. 

If  Holberg  had  regarded  Addison  as  the  principal 
author  of  the  papers,  his  interest  in  them  would  prob- 
ably have  been  quickened  by  that  fact,  for  Addi- 


274  HOLBERG  AND 

son  was  one  of  the  writers  in  whom  he  would  almost 
surely  have  become  interested  during  his  stay  in 
England.  In  1704,  by  publishing  The  Campaign, 
Addison  had  become  a  national  figure.  And  at  Ox- 
ford, above  all  places,  his  name  must  have  been  con- 
tinually mentioned  during  the  very  year  thatHolberg 
was  there.  The  university  that  encouraged  and  de- 
veloped his  poetic  talent  must  have  felt  a  peculiar 
sense  of  possession  in  his  work.  At  Oxford,  in  1693, 
Addison  had  published  his  Accoimt  of  the  Greatest 
English  Poets.  In  1 699 ,  he  had  issued  his  Latin  poems 
as  the  second  volume  oi  Musae  Anglicanae.  In  1706, 
the  year  in  which  Holberg  went  to  Oxford,  Addi- 
son had  just  added  to  his  reputation  by  producing 
his  opera  Rosamund.  The  young  foreigner  would 
surely  have  Hstened  eagerly  to  all  that  Oxford  could 
tell  him  about  Joseph  Addison. 

Information,  both  enthusiastic  and  reliable,  Hol- 
berg could  have  received  from  at  least  one  person  at 
the  university.  The  poet's  younger  brother,  Laun- 
celot  Addison,  who  was  made  a  Fellow  of  Magda- 
len College  in  1 706,  was  in  Oxford  during  the  entire 
time  that  he  was  there.  It  is  interesting  to  recall  in 
this  connection  Holberg's  statement  that  when  he 
was  leaving  Oxford,  a  student  of  Magdalen  Col- 
lege approached  him  and  in  the  name  of  the  entire 
college  offered  him  a  sum  of  money  large  enough  to 
pay  the  expenses  of  his  journey  back  to  Scandinavia. 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  275 

This  offer  shows  that  Holberg's  connection  with 
Magdalen  was  particularly  close.  It  is  by  no  means 
improbable,  therefore,  that  Holberg  knew  Launcelot 
Addison. 

Now  here  in  his  work  does  Holberg  refer  to  Joseph 
Addison  by  name,  yet  he  makes  one  significant 
indirect  reference  to  him.  In  his  Epistle  No.  512, 
which  is  a  dream- vision,  he  says  :  "  I  thought  that  I 
had  come  into  the  dwellings  of  the  dead  and  the  first 
to  meet  me  was  the  English  Spectator,  whom  I  had 
seen  in  my  youth  in  London  and  plainly  recognized 
again.  .  .  .  '  Tell  me,  my  dear  friend,'  "  etc.  If  these 
words  mean  anything,  they  mean  that  Holberg  had 
seen  Steele  or  Addison,  and  much  more  probably 
the  latter,  when  he  was  in  London.  His  salutation, 
Kjaere^  even  if  it  fails  definitely  to  establish  personal 
acquaintance,  does  prove  his  admiration  for  the  lit- 
erary achievements  of  the  authors  of  The  Spectator. 

The  few  bits  of  external  evidence  here  adduced 
tend  to  explain  that  early  familiarity  with  certain 
papers  in  The  Tw^'/er  which  the  plot  of  The  Political 
Tinker  shows  Holberg  to  have  possessed.  The  really 
significant  result  of  this  knowledge,  however,  is  not 
the  one  or  two  dramatic  situations  which  the  essays 
may  have  suggested  to  Holberg.  It  is  rather  the 
valuable  contribution  they  seem  to  have  made  to  his 
urbane  satiric  and  moral  attitude.  The  ethical  inten- 
tion of  Holberg's  comedies  is  the  quality  that  he 


276  HOLBERG  AND 

himself  is  most  prone  to  emphasize  as  of  primary- 
importance.  He  is  at  great  pains  to  describe  his 
plays  again  and  again  as  "moral  comedies."  He 
preaches,  both  through  the  ridicule  that  he  heaps 
upon  his  comic  heroes,  and  through  the  incidental 
essays  that  he  puts  into  the  mouths  of  his  characters. 
Critics  have  more  than  once  found  this  permeating 
didacticism  a  dramatic  blemish .  *  The  virtues  which 
Holberg  seeks  to  inculcate  are  not,  however,  of  a 
sort  to  produce  a  saint,  or  even  a  fundamentally  up- 
right man.  They  are  rather  such  as  would  grace 
any  sensible  member  of  society.  His  moral  interests 
are  almost  identical  with  those  of  the  authors  of 
The  Tatler  and  The  Spectator  when  they  assume  a 
humanistic  attitude.  To  the  large  number  of  senti- 
mental essays  among  these  papers,  Holberg's  criti- 
cal attitude  is  diametrically  opposed.  Holberg,  more- 
over, not  only  adopts  the  humanistic  critical  atti- 
tude that  the  English  authors  assume  towards  life, 
but  he  also  satirizes  identically  the  same  foibles  as 
they.  The  following  parallels  are  designed  to  show, 
then,  not  so  much  direct  sources  for  individual  dra- 
matic ideas,  as  significant  similarity  in  two  critical 
points  of  view. 

In  the  early  numbers  of  The  Tatler^  the  foolish 
affection  which  women  lavish  upon  lapdogs  is  at 
least  three  times  held  up  to  ridicule. f  Tatler  ^o. 
47,  for  example,  which  is  apparently  veiled  satire 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  277 

of  the  extravagant  efforts  made  by  the  Duchess 
of  Montague  to  find  a  lost  dog,  has  the  following 
characteristic  passage :  "  A  misfortune  proper  for 
me  to  take  notice  of,  has  too  lately  happened :  the 
disconsolate  Maria  has  three  days  kept  her  cham- 
ber for  the  loss  of  the  beauteous  Fidelia,  her  lapdog. 
Lesbia  herself  did  not  shed  more  tears  for  her  spar- 
row. What  makes  her  the  more  concerned  is  that  we 
know  not  whether  Fidelia  was  killed  or  stolen. ' '  Hol- 
berg  devotes  an  entire  play,  Melampe,  to  ridicule 
of  this  affection  for  dogs.  Philocyne,  like  Maria,  has 
lost  her  dog  Melampe,  and  does  not  know  whether 
it  has  been  killed  or  merely  stolen.  She  has  the  ani- 
mal cried,  and,  failing  to  find  it  by  this  method, 
gives  way  to  violent  grief.  The  play  develops,  to 
be  sure,  into  a  mock-heroic  poem,  in  which  two  sis- 
ters and  their  lover  fight  for  possession  of  the  pet 
in  absurd  warfare.  The  conflict  ends  only  when  a 
brother  of  the  warring  sisters  kills  the  dog.  It  is 
evident  that  Holberg  in  this  case  has  ridiculed  the 
same  social  folly  as  the  English  essayist  and  in  much 
the  same  spirit. 

Tatler  No.  264  satirizes,  in  particular,  prolix 
talkers,  who  are  said  to  be  even  more  insufferable 
than  prolix  writers.  "  This  evil  is  at  present  so  very 
common  and  epidemical,"  declares  the  author, 
that  there  is  scarce  a  coffee-house  in  town  that  has 
not  some  speakers  belonging  to  it  who  utter  their 


278  HOLBERG  AND 

political  essays  and  draw  their  parallels  out  oi Baker's 
Chronical  to  almost  every  part  of  her  Majesty's 
reign.  .  .  .  But  it  is  not  only  public  places  of  resort, 
but  private  clubs  and  conversations  over  a  bottle 
that  are  infested  with  this  loquacious  kind  of  ani- 
mal. .  .  .  What  makes  this  evil  the  much  greater  in 
conversation  is  that  these  humdrum  companions 
seldom  endeavour  to  wind  up  their  narrative  into  a 
point  of  mirth  or  instruction, .  .  .  but  they  think  they 
have  the  right  to  tell  anything  that  has  happened 
within  their  memory.  .  .  .  They  look  upon  matter 
of  fact  to  be  sufficient  foundation  for  a  story,  and 
give  us  a  long  account  of  things,  not  because  they 
are  entertaining  or  surprising,  but  because  they  are 
true."  A  better  embodiment  of  "this  loquacious 
kind  of  animal"  could  hardly  b*e  imagined  than 
Gert  Westphaler,  the  central  comic  figure  in  Hol- 
berg's  play  of  the  same  name.  He  is  a  barber  with 
two  or  three  tiresome  screeds,  which  he  finds  occa- 
sion to  repeat  on  the  slightest  provocation.  He  tells 
in  wearisome  detail  of  a  journey  which  he  made  to 
Kiel  in  his  youth,  not  because  it  has  a  "point  of 
mirth  or  instruction,"  but  merely  because  it  "hap- 
pened within  his  memory."  He  describes  elabo- 
rately the  constitution  of  the  German  Empire,  and 
discourses  tediously  on  the  diiference  between  Whig 
and  Tory,  not  because  the  facts  that  he  knows  are 
entertaining  or  surprising,  but  because  they  are 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  279 

true.  He  talks  in  every  conceivable  place,  both  public 
and  private.  He  empties  an  inn  w^ith  one  of  his  po- 
litical harangues,  and,  vuhat  is  more  important  for 
the  drama,  bores  h\s  Jiancee  into  marrying  his  rival. 
Whether  the  essay  in  The  Toiler^  in  any  sense,  fur- 
nished the  model  upon  v\^hich  Gert  was  drawn,  is 
a  question  of  much  less  importance  than  the  obvious 
fact  that  Steele  and  Holberg  are  attacking,  each  in 
his  own  way,  the  same  social  nuisance. 

Addison  frequently  makes  fun  of  various  sorts 
of  superstition.  He  devotes  No.  117  of  The  Spectator 
to  a  consideration  of  witchcraft,  about  which  he 
professes  to  believe  that  judgement  should  be  sus- 
pended. ' '  But, ' '  he  says, ' '  when  I  consider  that  the 
ignorant  and  credulous  parts  of  the  world  abound 
most  in  these  relations  and  that  the  persons  among 
us  who  are  supposed  to  engage  in  such  an  infernal 
commerce  are  people  of  a  weak  understanding  and 
crazed  imagination,  and  at  the  same  time  reflect 
upon  the  many  impostures  and  delusions  of  this 
nature  that  have  been  detected  in  all  ages,  I 
endeavour  to  suspend  my  belief."  In  spite  of  this 
apparent  tolerance,  Addison  shows  by  the  story  of 
Moll  White,  which  he  tells  immediately  after,  that 
his  ridicule  loses  none  of  its  point  through  the  ju- 
dicial attitude  which  he  as  a  critic  affects.  Holberg 
in  two  of  his  comedies.  Without  Header  Tail  and 
JFitchcraft,  makes  fun  of  the  same  superstition.  In 


280  HOLBERG  AND 

the  former,  as  has  already  been  shown,  the  exposure 
of  the  fraud  of  a  reputed  witch  converts  two  brothers 
of  Ovidius  from  superstition  to  his  attitude  of  sane, 
reasoned  skepticism.  In  JFitchcraft^  Holberg  shows 
how  kicrative  are  the  fraudulent  magic  arts  prac- 
tised by  a  man  whom  ignorant  folk  persist  in  regard- 
ing as  a  wizard.  Here  the  author,  speaking  through 
the  mouth  of  one  of  his  characters,  thus  paraphrases 
Addison :  "  Is  it  not  remarkable  that  one  does  not 
hear  of  witchcraft  being  practised  in  large  places 
like  Paris  and  London  ?  If  it  were  a  natural  sci- 
ence, it  ought  to  be  practised  among  the  learned 
nations,  w^ho  have  erected  colleges  for  scientific  re- 
search, and  not  among  people  who  can  neither  read 
nor  write."  Holberg  thus,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, uses  the  same  argument  as  Addison  to 
show  that  a  belief  in  witchcraft  is  not  wicked,  but 
unreasonable  and  ridiculous. 

In  Tatler  No.  89  the  abuses  of  calling  are  sat- 
irized, particularly  that  kind  of  social  visit  upon  a 
convalescent  which  has  a  tendency  ^'  to  congratulate 
him  into  a  relapse."  The  editor,  in  commenting  on 
the  complaint  of  a  correspondent,  who  objects  to 
being  pestered  by  calls  when  he  is  ill,  says :  "It  is 
with  some  so  hard  a  thing  to  employ  their  time,  that 
it  is  a  great  good  fortune  when  they  have  a  friend 
indisposed,  that  they  may  be  punctual  in  perplexing 
him,  when  he  has  recovered  enough  to  be  in  that 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  281 

state  which  cannot  be  called  sickness  or  health ; 
when  he  is  too  well  to  deny  company  and  too  ill  to 
receive  them.  It  is  no  uncommon  case  if  a  man  is 
of  any  figure  or  power  in  the  world,  to  be  congrat- 
ulated into  a  relapse."  In  The  Lying-in  Chamber^ 
Holberg  ridicules  just  this  sort  of  social  folly,  and 
his  attitude  is  the  more  significant  because  his  satire 
is  the  only  one  of  many  on  the  subject  which  takes 
the  same  point  of  view  as  The  Tatler.  He  regards 
the  round  of  calls  which  custom  decreed  should  be 
paid  upon  the  young  mother,  not  merely  as  a  chance 
to  satirize  the  women  of  his  time,  but  also  as  an 
opportunity  for  protest  in  the  name  of  the  poor, 
afflicted  convalescent  against  the  unreasonableness 
of  the  custom. 

In  Tatler  No.  32  the  ideas  of  Platonic  love  which 
were  exemplified  in  the  life  and  writings  of  Mary 
Astell  are  satirized.  Isaac  BickerstafF  has  received 
a  letter  from  a  Platonne^  about  whom  he  makes  the 
following  complaint:  "  If  I  speak  to  her,  that  is  a 
high  breach  of  intuition  ;  if  I  offer  at  her  hand  or  lip, 
she  shrinks  from  the  touch  like  a  sensitive  plant, 
and  would  contract  herself  into  mere  spirit."  The 
subject  of  the  main  plot  of  Holberg's  Invisible  Lov- 
ers is  taken,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  from  Scar- 
ron's  Roman  Comique.  Yet  it  will  be  remembered  that 
nothing  in  that  novel  suggested  the  highly  effective 
and  original  subplot  dealing  with  Harlequin  and 


282  HOLBERG  AND 

Columbine.  Now  we  may  realize  that  in  the  boy's 
abortive  attempts  to  imitate  his  master's  highly  spir- 
itual and  denatured  wooing,  Holberg  was  satirizing 
the  same  affectation  as  the  English  essayist,  ridicu- 
lous insistence  on  the  canons  of  a  sublimated  and 
romantic  love,  which  rendered  the  winning  of  a 
woman  an  elaborate  initiation  into  a  holy  mystery. 
In  these  cases  Holberg  has  made  the  subject  of 
his  comedies  identical  with  the  objects  of  attack  in 
the  English  essays.  At  other  times,  satiric  comment 
which  appears  incidentally  in  the  comedies  is  ex- 
actly of  the  same  sort  as  that  found  in  The  Tatler 
and  The  Spectator.  In  The  Spectator  ^o.  317,  for 
example,  Addison  has  Sir  Andrew  Freeport  show 
the  members  of  his  club  the  journal  of  a  friend 
who  has  recently  died.  The  utter  triviality  of  the 
entries  renders  them  highly  absurd.  "Monday, 
eight  o'clock:  I  put  on  my  clothes  and  walked  into 
the  parlour.  Nine  o'clock,  ditto :  Tied  my  knee- 
strings  and  washed  my  hands.  Hours  Ten,  Eleven, 
and  Twelve:  Smoked  three  Pipes  of  Virginia.  Read 
the  Supplement  and  Daily  Courant.  Things  go  ill 
in  the  North,  Mr.  Nisby's  opinion  thereupon,"  etc. 
In  Diderich^  Terror  of  Mankind^  Jeronimus  looks 
into  his  journal  to  find  the  record  of  the  birth  of  his 
niece  and  reads  the  following  entries :  ' '  On  the  21st 
of  January,  between  the  hours  of  eight  and  nine,  a 
very  thick  cloud  covered  the  sky  which  seemed 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  283 

surely  to  threaten  rain ;  but  it  passed  over.  The  22nd 
ditto,  the  whole  day  was  foggy."  "But,  my  dear 
brother,"  interrupts  Elvire,  "what  is  the  sense  in 
noting  such  trivial  things? ""  Wait  a  minute," 
continues  Jeronimus,  "I  shall  find  it  directly.  On 
the  24th  ditto,  I  saw  a  fine  girl  on  the  Square,  whom 
I  persuaded  to .  .  .  No,  that 's  not  what  I  am  looking 
for.  On  the  24th,  the  heel  came  off  my  shoe."  The 
similarity  is  obvious.  Both  authors  ridicule  the  folly 
of  keeping  minute  records  of  a  vapid  life,  and  the 
folly  of  the  self-importance  that  sees  in  such  trivial- 
ities material  worthy  of  a  chronicle. 

Without  multiplying  such  examples,*  one  can 
safely  assert  that  Holberg  and  the  English  essay- 
ists often  point  out  the  absurdity  in  exactly  the 
same  social  foibles  and  almost  invariably  in  follies  of 
the  same  nature.  He,  as  well  as  they,  directed  satire 
toward  ends  which  they  all  called  moral ;  but  the 
morality  in  which  the  English  authors  were  inter- 
ested was  not  fundamental.  They  did  not  concern 
themselves  with  the  passions  or  the  vital  interests 
of  men  ;  and  for  that  very  reason,  as  Steele  says  in 
The  Spectator ^o.  4,  the  critic  could  "with  greater 
sagacity  consider  their  talents,  manners,  failings, 
and  merits."  Similarly,  Addison,  in  The  Spectator 
No,  10,  explains  his  satiric  purpose  as  that  "of  bring- 
ing philosophy  out  of  closets  and  libraries,  schools 
and  colleges,  to  dwell  in  clubs  and  assemblies,  at  tea- 


284  HOLBERG  AND 

tables,  and  in  coffee-houses."  Holberg,  too,  consid- 
ered his  satire  moral.  "If  a  writer  of  comedy, "  he 
says,  "will  only  present  a  fault  in  its  true  colours, 
in  such  a  way  that  he  instructs  and  amuses  at  the 
same  time,  he  will  discharge  his  whole  duty."  The 
nature  of  his  satire  shows  that  he  believed,  like 
the  English  essayists,  that  morality  should  restrain 
rather  the  manners  of  men  than  their  passions ;  and 
the  objects  of  his  satire  make  it  probable  that  its 
quality  was  not  accidentally  like  that  of  The  Toiler 
and  The  Spectator. 

The  spirit  of  such  benevolent  ridicule  had  per- 
force to  be  urbane.  A  woman  cannot  be  persuaded 
to  regard  her  lapdog  less  fondly  by  savage  preach- 
ing ;  nor  can  a  man  be  parted  from  his  diary  by 
an  "armed  and  resolved  hand."  Holberg 's  comic 
spirit  is,  therefore,  essentially  indulgent.  And  it  is 
just  this  condescending  tolerance  that  makes  his 
comedy,  though  in  form  now  like  that  of  Moliere, 
now  like  that  of  Jonson,  in  spirit  radically  different 
from  both.  The  evidence  here  adduced  makes  the  in- 
ference irresistible  :  it  was  from  the  study  of  certain 
essays  in  The  Tatler  and  The  Spectator  that  Holberg 
learned  to  be  an  urbane  humanist.  The  farcical  com- 
edy through  which  he  chose  to  express  his  social  crit- 
icism inevitably  obscures  his  essential  kinship  with 
the  first  of  eighteenth-century  moralists  of  the  tea- 
table  and  coffee-house.  Even  though  he  expressed 


ENGLISH  LITERATURE  285 

his  ideas  in  a  form  of  low  comedy,  he  is,  in  his 
own  original  way,  a  Danish  Spectator. 

Holberg's  sojourn  in  England,  then,  which  he 
professed  to  regard  as  a  mere  youthful  escapade, 
proves  to  have  been  an  important  period  of  his  life. 
It  clearly  established  the  admiration  of  Englishmen 
and  their  habits  of,  thought  which  seems  to  have 
been  the  source  of  his  interest  in  English  literature, 
—  an  interest  which  became,  like  the  man,  eager 
and  catholic.  He  by  no  means  confined  his  reading 
to  that  English  history,  philosophy,  and  theology 
which  have  been  regarded  as  formative  influences 
upon  his  scholarship  and  philosophical  notions.  He 
read  much  miscellaneous  English  literature,  some 
of  which  clearly  influenced  his  early  satiric  and  dra- 
matic writing.  Certain  kinds  of  English  comedy  pro- 
voked his  admiration  and  imitation.  Of  the  Eliza- 
bethans his  master  was,  not  Shakespeare,  but  Jonson . 
Of  later  writers  of  English  comedy,  he  clearly  sym- 
pathized with  those  who  remained  true  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  Jonson.  Men  like  Farquhar  showed  him  that 
the  field  of  Danish  comedy  could  be  as  extensive 
as  the  nation  itself.  Holberg  decided,  therefore,  that 
no  corner  in  Zealand  should  escape  his  search  for 
figures  illustrative  of  the  varied  life  of  his  land.  Eng- 
lish plays  thus  helped  to  determine  some  of  the  most 
characteristic  features  of  his  art.  Yet  much  that  seems 
distinctive  in  his  satiric  attitude  was  not  evoked  by 


286  HOLBERG 

English  comedy,  nor  yet  by  the  actual  drama  of  any 
other  country.  Not  until  he  had  read  the  essays  of 
Steele  and  Addison  was  his  approach  to  his  material 
definitely  fixed ;  not  until  then  did  he  become  the 
tolerant  critic  of  social  extravagances  and  follies  that, 
even  in  his  moments  of  wildest  physical  farce,  we 
realize  him  to  be.  Plainly,  the  influence  of  English 
literature  upon  Holberg's  plays,  though  on  the  sur- 
face it  is  much  less  complex  and  diverse  than  that  of 
French  literature,  was  in  reality  equally  formative 
and  fundamental. 


HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN  AND  LATIN 
LITERATURE 


I 


CHAPTER  VII 

HOLBERG's  relations  to   GERMAN  AND 
LATIN  LITERATURE 

I 

N  the  year  1722,  little  German  literature  existed 
which  Holberg  might  have  found  either  sugges- 
tive or  inspiring.  J.  E.  Schlegel,  who  could  speak 
with  the  authority  of  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
dramatist,  says  in  a  letter  to  Hagedorn,  that  Hol- 
berg understood  but  little  German  and  paid  slight 
attention  to  German  authors.*  Those  whom  he  read 
he  knew  almost  by  accident.  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  the  first  German  writer  to  exert  a 
definite  influence  upon  him  was  one  whose  work, 
in  translation,  had  become  a  Danish  classic. 

Hans  Willumsen  Lauremberg,  after  extensive 
travels  and  a  career  as  Professor  of  Poetry  at  the 
university  in  his  native  town  of  Rostock,  was  called 
to  the  newly  established  Royal  Academy  in  Sor0  in 
1623,  as  Professor  of  Mathematics,  Geography,  and 
Engineering,  and  held  this  position  until  his  death 
in  1658.  In  1652,  he  published  in  his  native  Low 
German  his  most  important  work,  Four  Satires. "^ 
Almost  simultaneously  it  appeared  in  an  excellent 
Danish  version,  through  which  it  exerted  a  per- 
vasive and  continuous  influence  on  Danish  litera- 


290         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

ture  down  to  Holberg's  day.  Holberg's  formal  sat- 
ires bear  unmistakable  evidence  of  Lauremberg's 
influence.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  publish  his 
first  collection  of  satires,  though  five  in  number, 
under  the  title  of  Four  Satires,  evidently  wishing  to 
advertise  in  this  curious  w  ay  their  similarity  to  the 
earlier  work. 

The  influence  of  Lauremberg  upon  Holberg's 
comedies  is  equally  interesting.  Lauremberg  in  his 
fourth  satire  directs  much  of  his  ridicule  against 
a  fawning,  flattering  poet,  who  tries  to  present  his 
verses  at  the  door  of  a  possible  patron,  but  is  mis- 
taken for  a  peddler  and  driven  off  by  the  maid.  At 
last  he  comes  into  the  presence  of  a  rich  citizen,  only 
to  hear  from  him  a  scathing  denunciation  of  his 
versified  adulation.  "Your  bridal  hymns  and  your 
funeral  encomiums, ' '  he  says  in  eflfect, ' '  to  which  you 
devote  all  your  eflforts,  are  written  alike  for  those 
who  will  pay.  Flattery  is  the  object  of  your  verse,  and 
fulsome  praise  its  sole  subject.  Whatever  the  moral- 
ity of  a  dead  man  may  have  been,  in  your  memorial 
verses  his  soul  mounts  in  glory  to  heaven."  *  The 
poet  with  these  qualities  and  not  the  bel  esprit  Tris- 
sotin,  is  obviously  the  prototype  of  both  Rosiflengius 
in  The  Fortunate  Shipwreck  2C[vdi.  the  two  similar  poets 
in  Arabian  Powder,  who  are  willing,  if  well  paid, 
to  lament  the  death  of  Henrich's  cat.  Rosiflengius, 
too,  writes  verses  of  adulation  for  all  who  will  pay. 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        291 

In  the  words  of  his  servant  Gottfried,  he  allows 
the  deceased  to  "stand  with  palms  in  their  hands, 
whether  they  have  lived  decently  or  like  beasts."* 
It  seems  probable,  then,  that  Rosiflengius  owed  his 
existence  more  to  a  definite  literary  tradition  long 
established  in  Denmark,  than  to  Holberg's  observa- 
tion of  life  in  Copenhagen. 

Lauremberg's  third  satire  ridicules  young  men 
who  on  their  return  home,  after  spending  a  few  weeks 
in  Paris,  call  everyone  Monsir,  use  the  French  words 
they  know  on  every  possible  occasion,  give  their 
uncomprehending  servants  elaborate  directions  in 
French,  and  abuse  them  with  a  torrent  of  French 
oaths. t  All  of  these  affectations  belong  to  Holberg's 
Jean  de France.  He  combines  with  his  pigeon  French 
an  almost  insane  eagerness  to  adopt  the  latest  fashions 
in  dress,  but  in  this  folly  he  is  no  more  extreme  than 
the  similar  fools  of  fashion  ridiculed  in  Lauremberg's 
second  satire.  No  one  of  the  characters  in  the  four 
German  poems  is  a  complete  prototype  of  Holberg's 
Frenchified  fool,  yet  in  two  or  three  of  them  taken 
together  all  of  his  characteristics  could  have  been 
found.  Holberg  might  have  drawn  Jean  de  France 
without  knowing  the  English  comic  tradition  which 
has  been  suggested  as  a  probable  source  of  the  Dan- 
ish figure.  X  To  create  the  characters  of  Rosiflengius 
and  Jean,  he  needed  only  to  combine  and  revivify 
certain  traditional  figures  of  Danish  satire. 


292         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

Holberg's  relation  to  Lauremberg's  satires  shows 
no  real  knowledge  of  Low  German  life  or  literature. 
In  The  Political  Tinker^  however,  he  reveals  ac- 
quaintance with  contemporary  political  conditions  in 
Hamburg.  Although  Hermann  von  Bremen  seems 
to  be  a  direct  descendant  of  Addison's  political  up- 
holsterer, it  was  not  by  accident  that  the  scene  of 
his  political  exploits  was  laid  in  that  city.  From  1702 
to  1708,  the  magistrates  and  people  there  had  been 
engaged  in  a  noisy  feud.  A  Dr.  Mayer,  priest  of  the 
parish  of  St.  James,  by  accusing  a  rival  priest  of 
heresy,  had  aroused  the  men  of  the  two  parishes 
to  bitter  hostility.  He  was  accordingly  banished  to 
Pomerania  as  an  enemy  of  the  public  welfare. 
His  parishioners,  under  the  leadership  of  two  crafts- 
men, Stielcke  and  Liltze,  had  demanded  his  return 
by  all  sorts  of  riotous  demonstrations.  Holberg  re- 
fers to  this  feud  in  The  Political  Tinker.  *  The  great 
popular  appetite  for  politics  in  Hamburg  is  fur- 
ther shown  by  the  numerous  political  periodicals 
which  appeared  there  in  the  early  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. At  least  four  of  these  are  mentioned  in  The 
Political  Tinker  as  sources  of  the  wisdom  of  Her- 
mann and  his  sage  associates. f  Holberg's  choice 
of  the  German  city  for  the  home  of  Hermann  von 
Bremen  was  not  so  much  literary  caution  as  delib- 
erate art. 

In  1703,  Barthold  Feind  wrote  a  play  on  the  civil 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        293 

disturbances  in  Hamburg,  The  Parish  of  Saint  James 
in  Uproar^*  which  has  been  thought  to  be  the  source 
of  The  Political  Tinker. '\\io\hergvc\2iy  possibly  have 
known  the  work,  for  in  1708,  the  year  before  he  first 
visited  Hamburg,  a  second  edition  had  appeared, 
and  it  was  probably  presented  in  1 709,  while  he  was 
there.  Some  similarities  of  detail  exist  between  the 
Danish  and  the  German  play.  The  wife  of  Liitze, 
one  of  the  riotous  leaders,  is  called  Geeske,  a  name 
which,  though  unusual  in  Denmark,  Holberg  gives  to 
the  wife  of  Hermann  von  Bremen.  The  two  women 
occupy  positions  similar  enough  to  make  the  identity 
of  name  [Geeske,  Geske]  rather  striking.  J  The  plot 
and  general  idea  of  the  comedies,  however,  have 
almost  nothing  in  common.  One  conversation  be- 
tween Beecke,  the  wife  of  Stielke,  the  other  leader 
of  the  street  brawl,  and  Geeske  may  find  an  echo 
in  Holberg' s  work.  The  women  talk  together  at  first 
of  their  husbands '  neglect  of  business  and  of  the 
wretchedness  into  which  that  neglect  has  brought 
their  families,  but  they  presently  find  comfort  in  the 
dreams  of  the  honour  and  riches  which  are  to  be 
theirs  as  soon  as  their  husbands  become  powers  in 
the  city.  Geeske  first  by  her  shrewish  opposition  to 
Hermann's  disregard  of  business,  and  later  by  her 
ridiculous  attempts  to  learn  elegant  manners,  is  a 
dramatic  embodiment  of  the  ideas  expressed  in  the 
conversation  of  the  women  in  Feind's  play.  These 


294         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

small  points  of  resemblance,  whether  accidental  or 
deliberate,  are  important  simply  as  evidence  of  the 
various  ways  in  which  Holberg  attempted  to  give 
his  play  local  colour. 

The  only  German  comedy  to  which  any  of  Hol- 
berg's  works  bear  evident  dramatic  resemblance 
is  the  HoiriUlicnhnfax  of  Andreas  Gryphius.  Cer- 
tain distinctive  features  of  this  work  reappear  in 
Jacob  von  Tyboe.  The  hero  in  each  case  is  a  conven- 
tional miles  glojiosus^  but  Jacob  von  Tyboe  himself 
owes  almost  all  of  his  characteristics  to  the  brag- 
gart soldiers  of  Latin  comedy.  The  plays,  however, 
are  significantly  alike  in  that  they  both  provide  the 
soldier  a  bitter  rival  in  the  person  of  a  grandiose 
pedant.  Two  such  figures  are  frequently  rivals  in 
certain  forms  of  Renaissance  comedy ;  a  pedant  and 
a  soldier,  for  example,  are  often  both  suitors  for  the 
hand  of  the  amowsa  in  the  commedia  delVarte.  Yet 
the  German  Sempronius  talks  so  much  like  the 
Danish  Stygotius  that  the  characters  seem  to  be 
directly  related.  When  Sempronius  finds  himself 
compelled  to  wage  formal  war  upon  his  braggart 
rival,  he  speaks  thus  in  praise  of  his  weapon  : ' '  My 
good  old  Spanish  sword  with  which  I  have  broken 
the  windows  of  the  Rector  Magnificus  in  so  many 
universities."  Stygotius  in  a  like  situation  reassures 
himself  and  his  soldiers  as  follows :  "  I  possess  still 
the  same  blade,  the  same  hilt,  with  which  I  have 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE         295 

shattered  the  windows  of  so  many  worthy  professors 
in  Rostock."  That  both  of  these  men  should  offer 
exactly  the  same  convincing  proof  of  their  military 
achievements  is  hardly  accidental.  If  a  direct  con- 
nection is  thus  established  between  the  figures,  other 
similarities  between  them  become  significant. 

Like  all  stage  pedants,  these  learned  fools  are  pro- 
fuse with  their  Latin  quotations ;  but,  with  me- 
ticulous accuracy,  which  none  of  their  forerunners 
display,  they  are  at  pains  to  refer  each  of  their  quo- 
tations to  its  source.  "As  the  poet  says  {Metamor- 
phoses^ Book  two), ' '  is  a  typical  phrase  in  their  care- 
fully ordered  conversation .  When  they  meet  the  brag- 
gart soldiers,  their  rivals  in  love,  they  enter  upon  ex- 
citing word-combats  in  which  the  warrior's  strange 
oaths,  learned  from  many  nations,  are  matched  by 
the  pedant's  thunderous  Latin  and  Greek.  The  mur- 
derous exploits  of  the  braggart  are  similarly  offset 
by  the  scholar's  mighty  triumphs  in  scholastic  de- 
bate. "I  have  won  over  twenty  battles,"  shouts 
Jacob.  "And  I  have  disputed  over  twenty  times 
absque praesidio^''''  answers  Stygotius.  In  like  man- 
ner Sempronius  had  boasted, "Do you  think  that  I 
in  my  youth  haven't  also  learned  to  fight  at  the  uni- 
versity, TToWojv  iyo)  9pL(i)v  ^6(f)ov<;  aKT^/coa."  Per- 
haps it  was  association  with  these  learned  men  that 
made  both  soldiers  consider  poetic  ability  as  a  part 
of  their  omniscience.  "  As  if  I  couldn't  carry  on  the 


296         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

contest  with  many  sonnets,  madrigals,  quatrains, 
odes,  concertos,  sarabandes,  serenades,  and  au- 
bades!"is  one  of  Horribilicribrifax's  scornful  taunts. 
Jacob,  for  his  part,  gives  unmistakable  evidence  of 
his  lyric  gift  in  a  serenade  that  he  has  composed 
for  his  lady,  beginning," Lucilia,  my  jolly  dolly." 

Jacob  von  Tyboe,  then,  complete  product  of  Latin 
conventions  though  he  is,  has  for  a  rival  a  figure 
developed  by  a  different  comic  convention.  Stygo- 
tius  is  simply  one  of  the  many  pedants  of  Renais- 
sance comedy,  yet  his  particular  foibles  prove  him 
to  have  been  created  in  the  likeness  of  Sempronius. 
In  this,  perhaps  the  most  conventional  of  Holberg's 
plays,  are  fused  at  least  three  distinct  comic  tradi- 
tions,—that  of  pure  classical  comedy,  that  of  the 
pure  commedia  delP  arte,  and  that  of  the  commedia 
deWarte  as  modified  by  the  German  dramatist  Gry- 
phius.  Yet,  for  all  that,  it  is  still  amusing  enough  to 
be  played  frequently  at  the  Royal  Theatre  in  Copen- 
hagen to  enthusiastic  audiences. 

The  German  dramas  that  Holberg  knew  best  were 
of  a  sort  to  fill  him  with  contempt.  They  were  chiefly 
the  extravagant  pieces  of  the  vagrant  German  co- 
medians, who,  after  the  death  of  Johann  Veltheim  in 
1704,  wandered  as  far  north  as  Sweden  and  Den- 
mark. The  repertory  of  these  companies  consisted 
almost  exclusively  of  the  so-called  Haupt-  iindStaats- 
actionen*  Each  of  the  plays  was  an  inconsequential 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        297 

trilogy.  The  first  part  was  a  debased  development  of 
the  political  drama  that  had  been  composed  by  such 
men  as  Gryphius  and  Lohenstein  during  the  early 
seventeenth  century, — an  incoherent  chronicle  play, 
in  which  theprincipalcharactersactedlike  the  heroes 
of  degenerate  mediaeval  romance.  The  second  part 
was  an  impromptu  farce  dominated  by  Hans  Wurst; 
the  last  part  a  gorgeous  spectacle:  it  might  consist 
of  dances  by  a  chorus,  of  arias,  or  even  of  illumina- 
tions and  fireworks.  It  grew  to  be,  indeed,  the  pop- 
ular equivalent  of  the  opera,  which  at  this  time  was 
beginning  to  be  a  fashionable  diversion  in  Germany. 
The  company  with  whom  the  plays  became  defi- 
nitely associated  in  Coj^enhagen  had  been  organ- 
ized by  a  certain  Solomon  Poulsen  von  Quoten,* 
who,  after  a  chequered  career  as  itinerant  oculist, 
dentist,  and  manipulator  of  a  marionette  theatre, 
finally  obtained  permission  in  171 8  to  present  "Ger- 
man comedies,"  a  name  which  the  Danes  always 
applied  to  the  Haupt-  iind  Staats-actionen.,  in  Copen- 
hagen. Holberg  regarded  his  company  both  as  a 
rival  organization  and  as  an  artistic  anomaly.  On 
many  occasions,  therefore,  he  makes  it  the  object  of 
his  ridicule.  In  Witchcraft^  a  character  representing 
von  Quoten  himself  appears,  to  gloat  over  the  pun- 
ishment which  he  expects  will  fall  upon  the  comedian 
Leander  for  his  supposed  practice  of  the  black  art. 
He  sees  in  the  wizard's  detection  an  indirect  vindi- 


298         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

cation  of  his  own  long  despised  drama.  In  delight  he 
ventures  to  make  the  time  an  occasion  to  advertise  his 
new  dramatic  performance,  The  Enchantment  of Ar- 
m'ula. "  It  is  a  real  play , ' '  he  says, ' '  everything  hap- 
pens in  the  air  —  and  Armida  never  appears,  save 
mounted  on  a  flaming  dragon,  which  spits  fire." 
In  the  New  Year'' s  Prologue^  Mars  describes  the 
tumultuous  action  of  the  typical  von  Quoten  play 
in  the  following  bit  of  doggerel: 

Now  champions,  now  sieges, 

Now  rape  of  maids  and  strife, 

Now  one  who  broken-heartedly 

Decides  to  take  his  life; 
Now  persons  changed  to  stones  and  trees, 
And  dragons  all  of  lire,  one  sees. 

Ulysses  von  Ithacia^  however,  is  Holberg's  only 
complete  parody  of  "German  comedies,"  and  in 
his  autobiography  he  is  at  pains  to  indicate  what 
features  of  them  his  satire  ridicules  most  directly. 
"This  comedy,"  he  says, "attacks  those  ill-con- 
structed, tasteless,  fifty-year-long  comedies  which 
^^■ere  formerly  presented  here  by  wandering  actors. 
The  action  of  the  play  extends  over  a  period  of  forty 
years,  and  the  scene  is  changed  incessantly.  The 
heroes  talk  in  an  inflated,  bombastic  style  to  dis- 
tinguish them  from  the  common  folk;  a  trumpet 
is  blown  every  time  that  a  general  enters ;  and  the 
characters  are  one  moment  youths  and  the  next. 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        299 

grey-haired  old  men.  All  these  absurdities  Ulysses's 
servant,  Chilian,  exposes  so  cleverly  that  the  com- 
mon people,  who  usually  yawn  over  moral  and  criti- 
cal works,  were  no  less  amused  than  persons  of 
intelligence." 

It  is  perhaps  the  immense  leaps  in  time  and 
space  which  the  characters  so  jauntily  take  that 
most  often  provoked  Chilian's  naive  astonishment. 
"Well,  well,  how  time  does  fly!"  he  says  when 
he  suddenly  finds  that  the  scene  of  the  play  has 
changed  from  Greece  to  Troy.  "Now  we  have  all 
come  to  Troy,  which  is  four  hundred  miles  from 
our  native  land.  If  I  didn't  see  the  town  before  my 
eyes  now,  I  should  think  that  things  were  happen- 
ing as  they  do  in  a  German  comedy,  where  at  one 
stride  a  fellow  can  often  move  thousands  of  miles, 
and  in  one  evening  become  forty  years  older  than  he 
was  before.  But  the  thing  is  true  just  the  same ;  for 
here  where  I  point  with  my  finger  lies  Troy.  (He 
takes  a  light  and  walks  across  the  stage.)  It  is  cer- 
tainly written  here  in  Gothic  letters,  'This  repre- 
sents Troy.'  "  He  insists  also  in  testing  Ulysses's 
remark  that  Penelope  is  still  in  the  flower  of  her 
youth  by  the  hard  and  fast  rules  of  simple  arithme- 
tic. He  finds  that  the  lady  must  be  sixty-one,  but 
he  is  naturally  afraid  to  protest  against  the  time- 
honoured  conventions  of  the  drama.  "  Twenty-five 
and  thirty-six  make  sixty-one.  Yes,  that  is  so,  she 


300         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

is  still  in  the  flower  of  her  youth,"  he  concludes 
mechanically.  The  crude  stage  devices  that  the 
German  players  accepted  without  question,  Chilian 
finds  utterly  beyond  his  comprehension.  At  one 
moment  he  is  forced  to  reassure  himself  repeatedly 
that  the  wisp  of  a  broom  is  really  an  olive  branch ; 
at  the  next  he  takes  a  bit  of  theatrical  pretence 
so  seriously  that  he  begins  to  carve  his  initials  on 
the  back  of  one  of  his  companions  whom  Dido's  (!) 
sorcery  has  turned  into  trees. 

The  absurdity  of  the  magnificent  bombast  is 
evident  without  any  commentary  from  Chilian.  It 
speaks  for  itself.  Paris,  Rosimunda,  and  particu- 
larly Ulysses,  talk  in  the  exalted  strain  adopted  by 
the  princes  in  the  German  plays.  Ulysses  calls  for 
his  blood-besprinkled  sword  Dyrendal  and  for  his 
' '  helmet  which  the  Brazilian  Queen  of  Saba  set  on 
my  knightly  head  with  her  alabaster  hands  when 
I  set  out  for  my  combat  with  the  four-headed  knight 
Langulamesosapolidorous."  And  Rosimunda  ad- 
dresses Penelope  as  "my  dearest  sister,  Ithaca's 
sun  and  joy,  the  family's  jewel  and  precious  stone." 

It  is  impossible  now  to  tell  whether  or  not  Hol- 
berg  intended  his  play  to  be  an  exact  parody  of  any 
definite  "German  comedy."  One  of  the  plays  pre- 
sented in  Berlin  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  called  Ulysses  vo?i  Ithacia*  We  know, 
furthermore,  that  in  1747-48,  von  Quoten's  com- 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        301 

pany  gave  in  Copenhagen  a  piece  called  Ulysses  and 
Penelope^  or  The  Faithful  Constancy^  which  may 
have  been  a  redaction  of  one  of  Veltheim's  plays 
which  bore  the  title  Ulysses  and  Penelope.  The  ad- 
ventures of  Ulysses  were  evidently  a  favourite  sub- 
ject for  the  authors  of  the  Haupt-  und  Staais-actionen^ 
so  that  it  is  by  no  means  improbable  that  Holberg 
had  seen  von  Quoten's  company  give  a  Ulysses 
comedy.  Moreover,  a  German  opera  Ulysses  was 
presented  at  the  Danish  court  just  a  month  before 
the  new  Danish  theatre  was  opened,*  the  libretto  of 
which  bears  one  or  two  superficial  resemblances  to 
Holberg's  play.  It,  too,  begins  with  an  introduction 
in  which  Neptune  and  Jupiter  appear;  and  pro- 
vides Ulysses  with  a  merry  servant,  Arpax,  who 
has  the  same  sort  of  stupid  common  sense  as  Chil- 
ian, only  without  his  satire.  He  is,  for  example,  sim- 
ilarly wearied  by  the  incessant  wanderings  on  the 
sea,  and  similarly  doubtful  about  Penelope's  stub- 
born constancy  and  chastity. f  Holberg  would  have 
welcomed  a  chance  to  include  German  opera  in  his 
ridicule  of  German  drama.  It  was  much  the  more 
dangerous  rival  of  the  Danish  theatre,  for  it  enjoj'ed 
the  patronage  of  the  court  and  the  support  of  the 
wealthy  citizens  of  Copenhagen.  Holberg  surely 
found  Ulysses  a  better  hero  for  his  parody  because 
the  libretto  of  the  popular  German  opera  dealt  with 
the  same  subject. 


302  HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

On  the  whole,  J.  E.  Schlegel  was  undoubtedly 
correct  in  his  estimate  of  Holberg's  knowledge  of 
German  literature.  It  was,  one  may  say,  wholly  ac- 
cidental. Except  for  some  fugitive  and  superficial 
influences,  he  knew  only  such  German  literature 
as  he  was  bound  to  ridicule.  But  it  is  no  mean  ser- 
vice to  provide  a  comic  dramatist  with  subjects  upon 
which  to  exercise  his  wit.  The  wretched  Haupt- 
und  Staats-actionen  in  this  way  have  won  a  great 
and  undeserved  immortality  by  furnishing  Holberg 
the  material  for  one  of  the  most  amusing  parodies 
in  all  literature. 

II 

Holberg  has  made  his  relation  to  both  Greek  and 
Latin  comedy  thoroughly  clear  by  exact  statements 
about  his  knowledge  and  use  of  the  classics.  His 
acquaintance  with  Greek  literature  was  not  exten- 
sive, for  he  himself  says  that  besides  the  histo- 
rians, he  had  read  only  the  Iliad  and  two  come- 
dies of  Aristophanes.*  The  influence  of  this  reading 
upon  him  is  practically  negligible.  His  indebted- 
ness to  Latin  comedy,  however,  is  of  considerable 
importance.  Holberg  leaves  us  in  no  doubt  that  it 
was  Plautus  and  not  Terence  whom  he  admired 
and  imitated.  "Terence,"  he  says  in  one  of  his 
£pistles/^  is,  it  is  true,  entirely  free  from  faults, 
while  Plautus  is  full  of  them ;  yet  I  prefer  a  fine 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        303 

face  with  some  blemishes  to  an  insipid  face  with- 
out any.  Only  for  his  language  and  the  purity  of  his 
diction  does  Terence  deserve  praise ;  in  all  other  re- 
spects he  does  not  compare  with  Plautus."  "Of  all 
the  comedies  of  Terence,"  he  remarks  in  another 
place, '' '' \hQ  Eimuchus  is  the  only  one  which  could 
be  played  with  any  effect  on  the  modern  stage." 
Three  of  his  own  plays,  he  freely  admits,  are  based 
upon  Plautus :  A  Ghost  in  the  House  upon  the  Mos- 
tellaiia;  Dideiich^  the  Terror  of  Mankind  upon  the 
Pseudohis;  and  Jacob  von  Tyhoe  upon  Miles  Glori- 
osus. 

Of  A  Ghost  in  the  House  he  says  :  ' '  The  piece  can 
pass  for  an  original,  although  the  material  is  taken 
from  Plautus's  Mostellana.  A  French  writer,  too, 
has  recently  recast  that  play  in  a  new  form  under 
the  title  Retour  Jjnprevu.''''*  In  spite  of  Holberg's 
claim  tooriginality,  the  action  follows  that  of  theilfo^- 
tellaria  scene  for  scene.  Only  two  differences  of  any 
importance  exist  between  the  dramas.  First,  inas- 
much as  Holberg  does  not  introduce  a  single  wo- 
man character,  he  finds  no  place  for  the  typical 
Plautine  scenes  of  courtesans  and  procuresses.  Sec- 
ondly, Henrich  not  only  tells  the  traditional  story 
about  the  haunted  house,  but  he  also  makes  up  as  the 
ghost  himself,  and  by  threatening  to  take  Jeroni- 
mus  straight  to  hell,  makes  the  old  man  give  up  his 
purse.  This  disguise,  as  has  been  shown  above,  was 


304         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

one  that  Henrich,  in  imitation  of  Arlequin,  often 
assumed  in  situations  where  it  was  not  nearly  so 
suitable  as  here.  Holberg  evidently  found  it  one  of 
his  most  successful  bits  of  horse-play.  Into  the  ready- 
made  ghost  story  of  the  Mostellaria^  therefore,  he 
almost  inevitably  introduced  Henrich  in  his  favour- 
ite disguise.* 

Diderich^  the  Terror  of  Mankind^  according  to  Hol- 
berg, was  inspired  by  the  Pseudolus.  The  plots  of 
the  plays,  while  not  alike  scene  for  scene,  are  dis- 
tinctly similar.  In  the  Latin  play,  Calidorus,  who  is 
in  love  with  the  slave  girl  Phoenicum,  the  property 
of  the  procurer  Ballio,  is  horrified  to  hear  that  she 
has  been  sold  to  a  captain  for  twenty  minae.  Fifteen 
minaehave  already  been  paid  down,  and  upon  the 
payment  of  the  remaining  five,  the  soldier  will  get 
possession  of  the  girl.  Calidorus  turns  in  desperation 
to  his  slave  Pseudolus,  whom  he  implores  to  find 
some  way  of  saving  Phoenicum.  The  slave,  of  course, 
is  delighted  to  help.  Luck  favours  him  from  the  first, 
for  he  meets  by  chance  Harpax,  the  captain's  ser- 
vant, on  his  way  to  deliver  to  Ballio  the  five  minae. 
Pseudolus  immediately  pretends  to  be  the  procurer's 
own  steward,  and  in  this  character  persuades  Har- 
pax to  give  him  his  letter  of  identification.  But  he  is 
unable  to  induce  the  cautious  messenger  to  deliver 
the  money  to  anyone  but  Ballio  himself.  He  there- 
fore gets  his  friend  Samia  to  pass  himself  off  on 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        305 

Ballio  as  Harpax, — a  thing  easily  accomplished 
with  the  help  of  the  letter  of  identification, — and 
so  has  Phoenicum  delivered  to  him.  Then  Pseudo- 
lus  ends  the  play  in  a  drunken  celebration  at  the 
complete  success  of  his  series  of  tricks. 

Diderich,  the  Terror  of  Mankind^  begins  almost 
exactly  like  the  Pseudolus.  Leander  is  in  love  with  the 
slave  girl  Hyacinthe,  who  is  the  property  of  the  Jew 
Ephraim.  She,  too,  has  been  sold  to  a  blustering 
captain,  with  an  impressive  German  name,  Hans 
Frantz  DiderichMenschen-Skraek.  Henrich,  Lean- 
der's  servant,  interests  himself  in  his  master's  ef- 
forts to  obtain  Hyacinthe.  He  meets  the  captain's  ser- 
vant as  he  comes  to  get  the  girl,  and  with  even  greater 
impudence  than  Pseudolus  had  shown,  successfully 
pretends  to  be  the  Jew.  He  easily  gets  possession 
of  the  captain's  money,  and  then  delivers  to  the  ser- 
vant, not  Hyacinthe,  but  the  captain's  own  long- 
suffering  wife.  Then  he  takes  upon  himself  the  role 
that  Samia  played  in  the  Pseudolus  and  plays  the 
part  of  the  captain's  servant,  Christopher  Mauer- 
brecher.*  In  this  disguise  he  easily  induces  the  Jew 
to  give  him  Hyacinthe  for  his  amorous  master. 

Up  to  this  point  Holberg's  play  has  been  little  but 
the  Pseudolus^  simplified  by  attributing  to  Henrich 
an  invention  somewhat  more  daring  and  ingenious 
than  that  of  the  Roman  slave,  and  complicated  by 
the  introduction  of  Diderich's  own  wife.  The  irony 


306         HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

of  giving  to  the  German  captain  his  old  discarded 
wife  instead  of  the  lovely  slave  girl  has  no  counter- 
part in  the  Pseudoliis.  Neither  is  there  any  sugges- 
tion for  the  humour  of  the  scene  in  which  Diderich 
abuses  his  spouse  before  the  veiled  slave  girl,  only 
to  have  the  supposed  mistress  throw  off  her  veil 
and  disclose  the  irate  countenance  of  his  wife.  Hol- 
berg  makes  another  change  in  his  source  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  same  sort  of  irony.  Henrich,  instead  of 
celebrating  his  winning  of  Hyacinthe  in  drunken 
revelry,  devises  still  another  trick.  When  Diderich 
comes  to  pay  Ephraim  for  the  woman,  who  later 
proves  to  be  his  own  wife,  Henrich  disguises  him- 
self as  the  Jew  for  the  second  time  and  takes  the 
captain's  money.  Then  when,  a  few  minutes  later, 
the  real  Ephraim  enters,  Henrich  has  him  declared 
an  impostor  and  led  off  to  prison.  The  ironic  hu- 
mour of  these  two  incidents  is  much  more  clearly 
an  expression  of  Holberg's  comic  spirit  than  of  that 
of  Latin  comedy. 

At  the  end  of  Holberg's  play,  Hyacinthe  proves  to 
be  a  long-lost  daughter  of  Leander's  aunt,  and  conse- 
quently the  very  girl  whom  his  father  had  intended 
him  to  marry. This  device  is,  of  course,  a  common- 
place of  Latin  comedy.  Holberg  might  have  come 
upon  it  in  the  Curculio^  for  example,  which  is  like 
his  play  in  several  other  small  points.*  Holberg  in 
writing  Diderich^  the  Terror  of  Mankind^  undoubt- 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        307 

edly  started  to  compose  a  version  of  the  Pseudo- 
lus.  As  the  action  developed,  however,  his  imitation 
grew  less  and  less  slavish.  He  not  only  inserted  suit- 
able incidents  from  other  Latin  plays  with  which 
his  mind  was  stored,  but  he  also  added  a  few  inci- 
dents of  his  own  invention,  which  gave  expression  to 
a  kind  of  ironic  humour  not  characteristic  of  Latin 
comedy.  Yet  A  Ghost  in  the  House ^  in  spite  of  its 
somewhat  motley  character,  is  as  unmistakably  a 
Latin  comedy  as  Didetich^  the  Terror  of  Mankind. 
Jacob  von  Tyboe^  on  the  other  hand,  is  a  Latin  com- 
edy merely  because  its  comic  protagonist  is  a  thor- 
oughly conventional  miles  gloriosus.  Holberg  admits 
that  Plautus's  soldier  was  his  definite  model,  and 
insists  that,  although  Jacob  is  his  most  exagger- 
ated creation,  he  is  no  more  unreal  than  his  proto- 
type, or  than  Terence's  Thraso.  Tyboe's  imitation 
of  Pyrgopolinices  is  fundamental  and  continuous. 
The  Roman  soldier  listens  with  the  utmost  satis- 
faction while  his  parasite  calls  to  mind  his  mighty 
deeds.  He  hears  how  he  alone  in  a  single  day 
slaughtered  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  in  Cilivie, 
one  hundred  in  Cryphiolathrona,  thirty  in  Sardis, 
and  sixty  in  Macedon  ;  and  hovv^  he  broke  the  trunk 
of  an  elephant  with  his  bare  fist.  Tyboe  has  similar 
exploits  to  his  credit.  At  the  siege  of  Brabant  he 
fought  unaided  with  the  entire  garrison,  and  at  the 
battle  of  Amsterdam  killed  more  than  six  hundred 


308  HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN 

men  with  his  own  arm.  Both  of  the  braggarts  are 
made  to  believe  that  they  are  as  beautiful  as  the 
gods,  and  that  the  women  are  all  in  love  with  them. 
Artotrogus  praises  Pyrgopolinices  for  his  beauty 
until  he  readily  believes  that  the  woman  next  door 
is  madly  eager  for  his  favours.  Jesper,  the  Danish 
parasite,  praises  Tyboe's  beauty  with  equal  extrav- 
agance until  he  makes  him  believe  that  Lucilia 
cannot  fail  to  be  enamoured  of  so  much  loveliness. 
Finally,  in  spite  of  their  magnificent  exploits  in  the 
past,  both  of  these  empty  boasters  are  ignominiously 
trounced  by  the  lovers  of  the  women  whom  they 
persecute  with  their  attentions. 

In  these,  his  prominent  traits  of  character,  Tyboe 
is  an  exact  copy  of  Plautus's  most  farcical  figure. 
Yet  Tyboe  has  also  assumed  characteristics  of  Ter- 
ence's Thraso,  the  much  less  extravagant  soldier  of 
the  Eunuchus.  Like  many  men  of  unusually  slow 
wit,  Thraso  takes  peculiar  pride  in  his  skill  in  re- 
partee. He  fills  nearly  one  entire  scene  by  recount- 
ing to  his  parasite  Gnatho  the  clever  replies  that 
he  has  made  to  people  at  court.  Though  these  are 
either  stupid  variations  of  the  primitive ' '  You  are  a 
fool"  or  inept  repetitions  of  proverbial  expressions,* 
Gnatho  forces  himself  to  shout  with  laughter  at 
their  humour.  Jacob,  too,  has  at  least  one  bit  of  mar- 
vellous repartee  which  he  reports  to  his  admiring  par- 
asite. At  a  certain  banquet  he  replied  to  the  teasing 


AND  LATIN  LITERATURE        309 

of  a  table  companion  by  shouting  so  that  all  could 
hear  him , "  Monsieur  Chr istojffersen ,  you  are  in  sooth 
a  fool. ' '  Jesper  not  only  roars  with  laughter  when  he 
hears  this  reply,  but  he  also  keeps  Tyboe's  heart 
warm  towards  him  by  making  him  repeat  the  retort 
again  and  again.  This  situation  is  more  farcical  than 
the  similar  one  in  the  Eunuchus.  Thraso,  who  mis- 
takes a  stale  proverb  for  original  wit,  has  as  many 
descendants  as  he  had  undoubted  prototypes ;  Jacob's 
wit  would  not  amuse  a  schoolboy.  Yet  Tyboe's  pride 
in  his  own  inane  jokes  and  Jesper's  uproarious 
attempts  at  mirth  are  clearly  Holberg's  version  of 
the  similar  scene  between  Thraso  and  Gnatho. 

Certain  features,  moreover,  of  Tyboe's  fight  with 
Stygotius  and  the  later  attack  of  their  combined 
army  upon  Leonora's  house  were  undoubtedly  sug- 
gested by  the  similar  attack  which  Thraso  and  his 
army  make  upon  the  house  of  Thais.  Thraso  de- 
cides to  occupy  the  position  which  Pyrrhus  always 
found  the  best  spot  for  the  general,  —  the  rear.Tyboe 
under  the  same  conditions  asserts  that  the  general 
is  always  the  hindmost.  When,  in  the  Eunuchus^ 
Chremes  comes  out  of  the  house  of  Thais  to  protect 
her  from  Thraso,  he  orders  off  the  valiant  captain  as 
though  he  were  a  mere  dog,  and  Gnatho  expresses 
pity  for  the  man  who  dares  treat  thus  cavalierly  a  sol- 
dier of  the  transcendent  prowess  of  his  patron .  When 
Leonard  in  Holberg's  play,  coming  out  to  protect 


310  HOLBERG 

Leonora's  house  from  a  similar  attack,  falls  upon  Ty- 
boe,  Jesper,  likeGnatho,  tries  to  convince  Leonard  of 
his  danger  by  a  sarcastic  resume  of  Jacob's  mighty 
deeds.  "Do  you  know  what  you  are  doing?"  he 
exclaims.  "You  are  fighting  with  a  man  who  has 
won  over  five  thousand  sieges,"  etc.  The  attack 
upon  the  house  of  Thais,  which  Terence  treats  in 
one  scene,  Holberg,  with  the  aid  of  numerous  bits 
of  physical  farce  borrowed  from  the  commedia  delP 
arte,  expands  into  nearly  a  whole  act  of  horse-play. 
These  details  of  resemblance,  uninteresting  in 
themselves,  are  important  because  they  show  how 
thoroughly  and  unimaginatively  Holberg  made  use 
of  Latin  comedy.  A  Ghost  in  the  House,  Diderich, 
the  Terror  of  Mankind,  and  Jacob  von  Tyhoe  are 
none  of  them  illustrations  of  the  application  of  the 
Roman  comic  spirit  to  life  contemporary  with  Hol- 
berg ;  they  are  rather  collections  of  slavishly  copied 
details.  Holberg's  three  Plautine  plays  are,  there- 
fore, among  his  least  original  and  least  significant 
works.  The  fact  that  Jacob  von  Tyboe\s  played  suc- 
cessfully to-day  is  a  tribute  not  to  Holberg's  comic 
invention  so  much  as  to  the  permanent  quality  of 
Plautus's  humour.  Yet  a  study  of  Holberg's  Latin 
plays  is  important,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because 
it  shows  the  difference  between  his  constructive 
imitations  and  his  lifeless  redactions.  Holberg 
transformed  Moliere;  he  transcribed  Plautus. 


HOLBERG'S   GENIUS 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOLBERG'S  GENIUS 

BY  means  of  the  foregoing  studies  of  details 
and  extended  comparisons  of  diverse  comic 
arts,  the  elements  of  Holberg's  genius  have  been 
in  a  measure  revealed.  Yet  a  summary  of  its  most 
characteristic  features  will  doubtless  aid  in  estab- 
lishing a  unified  impression  of  his  distinctive  quality. 
Holberg's  art  was  primarily  cosmopolitan,  and 
therefore  wholly  independent  of  the  earlier  literature 
of  both  Denmark  and  Norway.  He  despised  the  little 
mediaeval  Scandinavian  literature  then  accessible, 
and  probably  regarded  the  popular  Danish  ballads 
and  tales  with  complete  indifference.  Holberg  shared 
all  the  intellectual  prejudices  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tur}^  He  found  the  Denmark  of  his  day  provocative  to 
satire  just  because  it  was  so  little  acquainted  with  the 
new  ideas  current  in  the  great  centres  of  culture.  The 
reading  of  the  average  Dane  seemed  to  him  ridicu- 
lously out  of  date. ' '  The  ordinary  man  of  the  middle 
class,"  he  says,  "reads  nothing  in  poetry  but  con- 
gratulatory occasional  verse,  nothing  in  theology  but 
funeral  orations  and  sermon  books,  almost  nothing 
in  drama  but  old  stories  of  Adam  and  Eve. ' '  Because 
he  believed  that  only  through  literature  could  his 
countrymen  be  awakened,  he  devoted  all  his  energy 


314  HOLBERG'S  GENIUS 

to  bringing  Danish  writing  of  every  sort  into  the 
stream  of  progressive  European  thought. 

None  of  Holberg's  intellectual  forbears  were 
Scandinavians.  Even  a  critic  like  Olaf  Skavlan,  who 
is  particularly  eager  to  discover  Norwegian  elements 
in  Holberg's  work,  admits  that  he  received  his 
inspiration  "not  from  the  Latin  he  read  in  Ber- 
gen, not  from  the  theology  in  which  he  was  exam- 
ined in  Copenhagen ;  but  from  Bayle  and  Locke, 
Montaigne  and  Herbert,  Montesquieu  and  Grotius, 
Moliere  and  Swift."  These  are  the  men  whose 
ideas  he  assimilated,  whose  stamp  he  bears.  Hol- 
berg's comedies,  then,  like  all  the  rest  of  his  work, 
are  an  expression  of  the  cosmopolitan  culture  of  the 
eighteenth  century. 

Holberg's  mind  was  not  inclined  to  delight  in 
venerable  national  traditions.  He  wrote  much  his- 
tory without  possessing  a  keen  historical  sense.  He 
felt  and  saw  life  in  its  immediacy.  His  literary 
methods  being  realistic,  no  character  in  his  plays 
seems  foreign  or  exotic.  Although  his  literary  forms 
and  the  ideas  animating  them  are  the  common  prop- 
erty of  Europe,  his  characters  are  undeniably  Dan- 
ish. Magdelone  is  never  a  mere  slavish  copy  of 
her  French  prototype.  She  shows  frequently  a  na- 
ture more  fundamentally  feminine  than  that  of  the 
shrewd  bourgeois  mothers  in  the  French  author's 
comedies.  Even  the  intentionally  perfunctory  amo- 


HOLBERG'S  GENIUS  315 

rosa  in  Holberg  becomes  a  giggling  peasant  girl. 
Henrich,  in  his  inception  as  incorrigible  a  zany  as 
Arlequin,  grows  through  his  constant  contact  with 
Danish  reality  into  the  full  stature  of  a  national  type. 
Arv,  the  descendant  of  Pierrot,  appears  as  a  chore 
boy,  reeking  of  the  Danish  soil.  Pernille,  too,  trans- 
forms the  artificiality  that  she  has  inherited  from  the 
pert,  intriguing  Colombine  into  robust  and  homely 
reality.  So  strong,  indeed,  is  Holberg' s  interest  in 
the  creation  of  vital  and  convincing  humorous 
figures  that  he  contrives  to  transform  mere  comic 
tricks  of  other  writers  into  devices  for  illuminat- 
ing character.  The  gorgeous  ballet  with  which  Le 
Bourgeois  Gejitilhomme  closes  is  converted  by  Hol- 
berg into  a  ceremony  that  evokes  the  most  char- 
acteristic of  Don  Ranudo's  actions.  At  the  centre 
of  every  one  of  his  situations  Holberg  has  placed 
an  astonishingly  real  man  or  woman. 

Yet  Holberg' s  conception  of  character  is  usually 
picturesque  rather  than  profound.  He  had  none  of 
the  scientific  interest  in  the  intensive  study  of  mo- 
tive which  distinguishes  modern  intellectual  natu- 
raHsts.  His  realistic  method  was  often  superficial, 
because  it  attempted  descriptions  of  surface  actions, 
rather  than  analyses  of  motives.  The  causes  of  almost 
all  human  action  were  explained  by  the  convenient 
Jonsonian  theory  of  "humours."  Holberg,  more- 
over, was  apparently  willing  to  sacrifice  psycholog- 


316  HOLBERG'S  GENIUS 

ical  truth  for  the  sake  of  intensifying  his  ridicule. 
The  fickle-minded  woman  in  his  drama  changes  her 
mind  more  often  and  more  abruptly  than  any  sane 
human  being  could  be  imagined  as  doing,  yet  she 
undoubtedly  seemed  to  Holberg,  for  that  very  rea- 
son, a  more  effective  comic  figure.  An  author  with 
a  keen  sense  for  psychological  truth  would  hardly 
have  chosen  for  one  of  his  central  characters  a 
merely  loquacious  barber.  Such  characters  as  these 
are  men  of  but  two  dimensions.  Holberg  has  seen 
in  them  no  more  than  has  met  his  eye.  His  imagi- 
nation, indeed,  was  too  often  a  slave  of  his  vision. 
He  was  very  careful  never  to  attempt  to  portray 
any  character  who  moved  at  all  beyond  the  range 
of  his  personal  observation.  The  feelings  of  young 
lovers,  for  example,  and  even  their  simplest  actions, 
were  not  within  the  limits  of  his  experience.  He 
therefore  sedulously  avoided  the  portrayal  of  love 
scenes.  In  one  play,  Masquerades^  where  he  appar- 
ently does  not  know  how  to  escape  such  a  scene,  he 
relies  wholly  upon  pantomime.  Instead  of  trying  to 
write  dialogue,  he  gives  the  following  directions  for 
a  dumb  show  : ' '  Interlude,  wherein  a  masquerade 
is  enacted.  Leander  is  presented  as  being  in  love 
with  a  masked  woman  who  is  Leonora,  Leonard's 
daughter." 

Thus  Holberg's  realism  had  its  limitations.  The 
nature  of  the  foibles  that  he  desired  to  ridicule 


HOLBERG'S  GENIUS  317 

tended  to  keep  his  observation  vigilant  rather  than 
deep.  As  a  humanist,  trained  in  the  school  of  Addi- 
son, he  wished  to  reform  manners  and  not  mor- 
als. The  objects  of  his  satire  were  superficial  absurd- - 
ities,  and  he  directed  all  the  clearness  of  his  intellect 
to  reflecting  the  actions  of  men,  and  not  to  detect- 
ing their  passions.  Though  his  realism  was  com- 
paratively shallow,  it  gave  the  breath  of  life  to  every- 
thing that  it  touched.  His  descriptions  of  charac- 
ters were  so  circumstantial  that  his  contemporaries 
insisted  that  they  were  all  copies  of  definite  men  and 
women.  His  "moral  satire"  they  reduced  to  the 
level  of  personal  abuse.  Holberg  found  such  literal- 
minded  interpretation  of  his  work  a  constant  source 
of  irritation.  Of  Peder  Paars  he  exclaimed  with  dis- 
gust :  "  I  am  certain  that  if  Hans  Mikkelsen's  poem 
were  to  be  translated  into  Persian,  many  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Ispahan  would  swear  that  the  satire  was 
directed  against  them."  Holberg's  realistic  meth- 
ods reproduced  the  surroundings  of  his  characters 
and  the  customs  of  the  every-day  life  of  eighteenth- 
century  Denmark  with  the  same  striking  verisi- 
militude. Oehlenschlager  expressed  his  admira- 
tion for  this  quality  of  Holberg's  genius  by  saying : 
"  If  Copenhagen  were  to  be  utterly  destroyed,  and 
in  a  subsequent  generation  only  Holberg's  comedies 
were  to  be  unearthed,  the  Copenhagen  of  the  early 
eighteenth  century  could  be  reconstructed  from  them 


318  HOLBERG'S  GENIUS 

alone  as  completely  as  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum 
have  been."  We  may  add  not  only  the  great  city, 
but  also  the  typical  village  and  farm  of  Zealand  at 
the  same  time. 

Praise  of  this  sort  makes  it  clear  that  Holberg's 
realism  was  immediate  and  photographic.  What 
his  observation  lacked  in  penetration,  it  supplied  in 
vividness  and  versatility.  His  eagerness  to  discover 
all  the  humorous  elements  in  Danish  life  made  him 
tireless  in  his  search  for  facts  and  uncompromis- 
ing in  his  accurate  portrayal  of  them.  This  quality 
of  Holberg's  mind  sharply  distinguishes  him  from 
Moliere.  He  feels  the  compulsion  of  no  dramatic 
social  traditions.  He  feels  no  responsibility  for  the  re- 
spectability, or  even  for  the  decency,  of  his  dramatic 
creations.  If  countryfolk  possessed  ridiculous  char- 
acteristics, Holberg  saw  no  reason  why  they  should 
not  appear  on  the  stage  in  garb  as  uncouth  as  that 
they  More  in  actual  life.  If  the  elemental  love  of  Dan- 
ish peasant  girls  filled  their  talk  with  simpering  vul- 
garity, why  should  Lisbed,  in  Erasmus  Montanus^ 
speak  with  any  more  refinement  ?  If  a  Danish  peasant 
often  lay  in  a  drunken  stupor  upon  a  dung-heap, 
why  should  not  Jeppe  of  the  Hill  be  exhibited  in  an 
equally  foul  condition?  Indeed,  Holberg's  sense  of 
fact  is  often  saved  from  sheer  brutality  only  by  the 
genial  humour  which  plays  like  sunlight  over  all  the 
squalor  of  the  low  life  that  he  depicts. 


HOLBERG'S  GENIUS  319 

Fortunately,  too,  in  just  those  places  where  Hol- 
berg's  realism  photographs  with  the  most  uncom- 
fortable truth,  it  becomes,  as  it  were,  transfigured. 
Vulgar  facts  lead  us  beyond  themselves  to  situa- 
tions of  permanent,  and  even  universal,  signifi- 
cance, of  which  they  are  the  mere  symbols.  The 
coarseness  of  a  detail  is  forgotten  as  soon  as  it  is  seen 
to  be  typical.  Jeppe  is  more  than  a  dirty  and  brutish 
drunkard,  just  as  Erasmus  is  more  than  a  farcical 
pedant.  In  the  person  of  each  of  them,  widely  prev- 
alent social  conditions  of  a  past  time  are  expressed 
in  human  terms  of  lasting  truth  and  vitality. 
Through  historical  records,  we  may  know  the  facts 
of  a  past  epoch ;  through  characters  like  Jeppe  and 
Erasmus,  we  may  actually  experience  them.  But 
the  interest  that  such  realistic  figures  arouse  is  not 
primarily  historical. They  possess  enough  of  the  stuff 
of  common  human  nature  always  to  awaken  sym- 
pathetic comprehension.  The  situations,  therefore, 
of  which  they  form  the  centres  are  of  universal  ap- 
peal ;  and  the  characters,  like  all  great  artistic  crea- 
tions, belong,  not  to  one  nation  or  to  one  age,  but  to 
the  cosmopolitan  life  of  all  time. 

Holberg,  then,  deserves  a  permanent  place  in  the 
literature  of  the  world.  To  his  Danish  contempo- 
raries he  was  significant  largely  because  he  brought 
the  literature  of  his  country  into  the  current  of  Euro- 
pean thought.  To  the  Danish  people  of  to-day  he  is 


320  HOLBERG'S  GENIUS 

important  because  he  presents  them  with  vivid 
pictures  of  their  ancestors.  To  the  literary  historian 
he  is  interesting  because  his  work  illustrates,  bet- 
ter than  that  of  almost  anyone  else,  the  process  by 
which  elements  of  widely  different  sorts  maybe  com- 
bined by  a  genius  so  as  to  produce  a  profoundly 
original  national  literature.  To  lovers  of  letters, 
finally,  Holberg  will  appeal  for  his  intrinsic  merits. 
He  will  prove  a  source  of  delight  because  he  was 
able  to  make  his  vividly  realized  facts  concerning 
Danish  life  of  the  eighteenth  century  typical  of  uni- 
versal human  experience.  Thus  Holberg's  laughter, 
evoked  by  the  folly  of  mankind  two  hundred  years 
ago,  bids  fair  to  be  immortal. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

SCANDINAVIAN  PERIODICALS 

REFERRED  TO  BY  ABBREVIATED  TITLES 

Ath,  Athene^  et  Maanedskrift  (pub.  by  Chr.  Molbech) ,  Copen- 
hagen, July^  1873-December,  1887. 

Dan.  Dania,  Tidsskrift  for  Dansk  Sprog  og lAtterahir samt  Folke- 
mindevy  ed.  for  Universitets  Jubilaeets  Danske  Samfund  by 
Venier  Dahlerup,  Otto  Jespersen,  and  Kristoffer  Nyrop,  10 
vols.,  Copenhagen,  1890-1903. 

Dan.  Sam.  Danske  Samlinger  for  Historie^  Topographie^  Per- 
sonal- og Liferahir-Historie,  pub .  by  C .  Bruun ,  O .  Nielsen ,  and 
(Vols.  1-5)  A.  Petersen, and  Vol.  6  by  S.  B,  Smith,  6  vols., 
Copenhagen,  1865-70. 

Dan.  Stud.  Danske  Studier,  ed.  by  Marius  Kristensen  and  Axel 
Olrik,  Copenhagen,  1904-13. 

Dan.  Tid.  Danske  Tidsskrift,  pub.  by  L.  Moltesen,  Copenhagen, 
1898-1913. 

Hist.  Tids.  Historisk  Tidsskrift,  pub.  by  Danske  Historiske 
Forening,  Copenhagen,  1st  series,  1 840-45 ;  2d  series,  1 847- 
56;  3d  series,  1838-68;  4th  series,  1869-78;  5th  series, 
1879-87;  6th  series,  1888-96;  7th  series,  1897-1913. 

Hist.  Tid.  Historisk  Tidskrift,  pub.  by  Svenska  Historiska 
Foreningen ,  Stockholm ,  1881-1913. 

NoRD.  Tid.  Nordisk  Tidskriftfor  Vefe?iskap,  Konst och  Industrie 
ed.  Li tterstedska  Foreningen,  Stockholm,  1878-1913. 

GENERAL  REFERENCES 

ANDERSEN,ViLHELM:Zi/^eraft/rjBj7/ec?er,  2  vols.,Cop.,  1905-07. 

Ring,  Just:  Den  Holbergske  Komedie  (Nord.  Tid.,  1901,  pp. 
493  ff.). 


324  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

BoYK,  A.  E. :  Fragmenter over  Holberg  (8  essays,  Ath. ,  V,  VIII, 
IX,  1815-17). 

Brandes,  Georg  :  Ludvig  Holberg,  etFestskrifl  {SamledeSkrifter^ 
I,  1-165,  Cop.,  1899). 

Bruun,  Chr.  :  Lettre  d'un  Danois  cL  un  Fran^ais,  concemant  le 
Baron  d' Holberg  ei  ses  Oiwrages  a  Copenhague,  circa  1760 
(Ban.  Sam.,  VI,  207). 

Hansen,  D.  :  Illiistreret  Dansk  Litteratur  Mstorie,  2d  ed.,  II, 
2-114. 

HoFFORY,  Julius  :  Holbergs  Komodiendichtung.  Ddnische  Schau- 
bilhne;  Die  vorziiglichsten  Komodien  des  Freiherrn  Ludvig  von 
Holberg  in  den  altestenDeutschen  Ubersetzungen,  Berlin,  1888, 
I,  23-73. 

H0YBERG,  Wille:  KjobenhavTiske  Samlinger  af  rare  trykte  og 
utrykte  Piecer,  Cop.,  1754. 

Kahle,  B.  :  Ludmg  Holberg  (Neue  Heidelberger  Jahrbiicher, 
XIII,  144-172). 

Legrelle,  Arsene  :  Holberg  considere  comme  Imitateur  de  Mo- 
Here.  These  prtseniee  a  la  Faculte  des  lettres  de  Paris,  Paris, 

1864. 

Molbech,  C.  :  Holberg  og  ham  Samtid  {Hist.  Tid.,  VI). 

Nielsen,  Olaf:  Om  K0benhavnpaa  Holbergs  Tid,  Cop.,  1884. 

Oehlenschlager,  Adam  :  Bemerkungen  iiber  Holberg  als  Lust- 
spieldichter  (Vol.  1  in  translation  of  Comedies). 

Olsvig,  Viljam  :  Del  store  Vendepunkt  i  Holbergs  Liv,  Bergen 
and  Cop.,  1895. 

Olsvig,  Viljam  :  Om  Ludmg  Holbergs  saakaldte  Selvbiograji, 

Cop.,  1905. 
OvERSKou,  Thomas:  Den  Danske  Skueplads  i  dens Historie,  fra 

de  f0rste  Spor  af  danske  Skuespil  indtil  vor  Tid,  Cop. ,  1854. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  325 

Petersen,  N.  M.  :  Bidrag  til  den  danske  lAteraturs  Historie^ 
Cop.,  1858,  IV,  481-772. 

Pheupsen,  C.  J.  a.  :  Den  Holbergske  lAteraturs Historie  og  Bibli- 
ographi,  trykt  som  Ms.  i  50  exemplar er,  Cop.,  1847. 

Prutz,  Robert  :  Ludvig  Holberg^  sein  Leben  und  seine  Schriften, 
nebst  einerAuswahl  seiner  Komodien^  Stuttgart  and  Augsburg, 
1857. 

Rahbek,  Knud  L.  :  Holbergs  Udvalgte  Skrifter.  0/n  Ludvig  Hol- 
berg  som  Lystspildigter  og  om  hans  Lystspil^  Cop.,  1817. 

Skavlan,  Olaf:  Holberg  som  Komedieforf alter ;  Forbilleder  og 
Eftermrkninger^  Kristiania,  1872. 

Smith,  C.  W.  :  Om  Holbergs  Levnet  ogpopuldre  Skrifter,  Cop., 
1858. 

Werlauff,  E.  C.  :  Historiske  Antegnelser  til  Ludmg  Holbergs 
alien  f0rste  Lystspil,  Cop.,  1858. 

CHAPTER  I  :  HOLBERG'S  LIFE.    {Pages  9  ff.) 

Andersen,  Vilhelm  :  Ludvig  Holberg paa  Tersl0segaard,  Cop., 

1904.  ' 

Beaumelle,  C.  de  la  :  Mes  Pensees,  Cop.,  1 75 1 . 

BiNG, Just:  Holbergs  F0rste  Levnetsbrev  {Dan.  Stud.,  1904, 
p.  80).  Holberg,  Rostgaard  og  Montaigu  (Nord.  Tid.,  1900, 
p.  286).  Holbergs  Ungdoms  Udvikling  (Nord.  Tid.,  1903, 
p.  45).  Holbergs  Livsanskuelse  og  Personlighed  {Da?i.  Tid., 

1905,  p. 697). 

Brasch,  Chr.  H.  :  Om  Robert  Molesworths  Skrift,  '"''  An  Account 
of  Denmark  as  it  was  in  the  Year  1692,"  Cop.,  1879. 

Bruun,  Chr.  :  Om  Ludvig  Holbergs  Trende  Epistler  til  en  Hoj- 
fomem  Herre,  indeholdende  hans  Autobiografi,  Cop.,  1895. 
Et  Par  Ord  om  Baron  Holberg  {Dan.  Tid.,  1905,  pp.  5 09- 
512).  Nye  Bidrag  til  Oplysning  om  den  danske  Skueplads  i 


326  BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

dens  f0rste  Aar  {Dan.  Snm.^WV).  En  Samtidigt  Bidrag  til 
Bed0mmelsen  af  Holbergs  Forfattervirksomhed^  i  Breve  fra 
0.  M.  Stub  til H.  Gram  {Dnn.  Sam.,  I,  74) .  Fortegnelser  over 
en  Del  af  Luduig  Holbergs  Bibliothek,  Cop.,  1869.  Ludvig 
Holberg  som  Laerer  i  Hisforie,  Cop.,  1872. 

Daae,  L.:  Optegnelser  til  Ludvig  Holbergs  Biograji  (Hist.  Tid., 
1st  series,  II,  1872). 

Dahlerup,  Verner:  Om  Holbergs  sidste  Autobiograji,  Epistel 
Nr.  447  {Hist.  Tids.,  6th  series, IV,  1893).  Holbergs Pri vat- 
breve  (Han.,  I,  Cop.,  1897). 

Dyrlund,  F.  :    En  foregiven   Guds0n  af  Holberg  (Dan.,  IX, 

52). 
Elberung,  C.  G.  :  Holbergiana  Quaedam  (Dan.  Sam. ,  IV,  2  73) . 

Hansen,  Viggo  :  Religionen  hos  Holberg  (to  be  published  in 
Studier  fra  Sprog-  og  Oldtids-Forskning) . 

Holm,  E.  :  Holbergs StatsretsligeogpolitiskeSi/nsmaader, Cop., 

1879. 

Kall-Rasmussen,  M.  N.  R.  :  Bidrag  til  L.  Holbergs  Biografifor 
Aarene  1702-14  (Hist.  Tids.,  3d  series,  I,  185  8), 

Lorenzen,  C.  H.  :  Holbergs  Jordegods  (For  Literatur  og  Kritik, 
IV,  173,  Odense,  1846). 

Martensen,  Julius:  Holbergs  Komedie    (2  essays)   I,    Cop., 

1897. 
Molesworth,  Robert  :  An  Account  of  Denmark  as  it  was  in  the 

Year  1692,  London,  1694. 

MuLLER,  SiG. :  Holberg  og  hans  Samtid,  Cop.,  1897. 

MiTT.T.F.R ,  Th.  a.  :  Hvorledes  Holberg  blev  Baron  (Politiken^ 
Cop.,  May  20,  1905). 

Nordahl-Olsen,  J. :  Ludvig  Holberg  i  Bergen  ;  Bidrag  til  hans 
Biografi  paa  Grundlag  af  nyere  Unders0gelser  og  Arkivsta- 
dier,  Bergen,  1905. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  327 

Nyrop,  Kr.  :  Holbergiana  (Ban.^  X,  129,  1903). 

Olsvig,  Viljam  :  Nogle  historiske  Forstudier  til  Holbergs  Selv- 
biograji  og  til  hans  Livshistorie^  Cop.,  1903. 

Payne,  W.  M.  :  Ludvig  Holberg,  Nashville,  Tenn.,  1899. 

Skeel,  Mogens:  Grevens  og  Friherrens  Komedie,  ed.  Sophus 
B.  Smith,  Cop.,  1871.  ' 

Thrap,  D.  :  Fra  Holbergs  Skoletid  {Hist.  Tids.,  2d  series,  II, 
82). 

Warburg,  Karl:  Holberg  i  Sverige,  Jdmfe  Middelanden  om 
hans  sveiiske  Ofversdttare^  Goteborg,  1884. 

Welhaven,  J.  E. :  Om  Ludvig  Holbergs  Christiania,  1854. 

CHAPTER  IV  :   HOLBERG   AND    THE    COMMEDIA 
DELL' ARTE.  {Pages  \39  ff.) 

I.  Collections  of  scenarios^  etc.: 

Andreini,  Francesco  :  Le  Bramire  del  Capitano  Spavento.,  Ven- 
ice, 1614.  Nuova  aggiunta  alle  Bravure  del  Capitano  Spavenfo, 
etc.,  Venice,  1615. 

Bartoli,  Adolfo  :  Scenari  Inediti  della  Commedia  dell  'Arte^ 
Florence,  1880.  Twenty-two  scenarios  from  a  manuscript  of 
the  eighteenth  century  found  in  the  MagUabecchiana.  Some  of 
the  pieces  are  of  an  earlier  date. 

Bartolomei,  Girolamo  :  Didascalia  cioe  Dottrina  Comica^  Flor- 
ence, 1658. 

BiANcoLELLi,  D. :  Scenario  de  nominique  (Bibliotheque  de 
Grand  Opera  de  Paris,  MS.  483  and  484.  Catalogue  Soleinne, 
Vol.  V,  No.  329) .  — This  manuscript  contains  seventy-three 
scenarios,  five  sketches,  and  the  fragments  of  three  others, 
all  made  by  the  famous  Biancolelli  and  translated  into  French 
by  Gueulette. 

Gher,\rdi,  Evaristo  :   Le   Theatre  de   Gherardi  ou  le  Recueil 


328  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

General  de  toutes  les  Comedies  et  Scenes  frangoisesjouees  par 
les  Comediens  Italiens  dii  Roy  pendant  tout  le  temps  qu'ils  ont 
ete  au  service^  Paris,  1700  and  1707,  6  vols. 

Parfaict,  F.  8c  C.  :  Dictionnaire  des  Theatres  de  Paris  conte- 
nant .  .  .  extraits  de  celles  (pieces)  qui  ont  ete  jouees  par  les 
Comediens  Italiens  depuis  leur  retablissement  en  1716,  Paris, 
1756,  7  vols.  Histoire  de  V Ancien  Theatre  Italien  depuis  son 
origine  en  France  jusqu' a  sa  suppression  en  V annee  1697. 
Suivie  des  extraits  ou  canevas  des  meilleures  Pieces  Italiennes 
qui  n' ont  jamais  ete  imprimees,  Paris,  1767.  Contains  thirty- 
eight  of  the  seventy-three  scenarios  found  in  Biancolelli's 
manuscript. 

ScALA,  Flaminio  :  H  Teatro  delle  Favole  Rappresentative  overo  la 
ricreatione  comica,  boscareccia  e  tragica,  dimsa  in  cinquante 
giornate,  Venice,  1611.  Scenarios  of  forty  comedies,  ten  tra- 
gedies, or  pastomls,  played  by  the  Gelosi  in  France. 

II.  General  History  of  Italian  Comedy ,  particularly  in  France  : 
Barbeeri,  Nicc»lo  :  La  Supplica,  ricoretta  ed  ampliata^  Venice, 

1634. 

Bartou,  F.  :  Notizie  Istoriche  de''  Comid  Italiani  che  Jiorirono 
intorno  alV  anno  MDL  Jino  a'giorni presenti,  Padua,  1781, 
2  vols. 

Baschet,  a.  :  Les  Comediens  Italiens  a  la  Cour  de  France  sous 
Charles  ZX,  Henri  HI,  Henri  IF  et  Louis  XIII,  Paris,  1882. 

Bernardin,  N.  M.  :  La  Comedie  Italienne  en  France  et  les 
Theatres  de  la  Foire  et  du  Boulevard,  15  70-1791,  Paris, 
1902. 

Campardon,  E.  :  Les  Spectacles  de  la  Foire  .  .  .  ,  Paris,  1877, 
2  vols. 

CoNSTANTiNi,  A.  :  La  Vie  de  Scaramouche,  Paris,  1695. 

Dietrich,  A.:  Pulcinella,  Pompejanische  Wandbilder  und  Ro- 
mische  Satyrspiele,  Leipzig,  1897. 


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Driessen,  O.:  Der  TJrsprung  des  Harlekin  ;  ein  Culturgeschicht- 
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KxiNGER,  O.  :  Die  Comedie  Italienne  nach  der  Sammlung  von 
GAemrrf?',  Strassburg,  1902. 

LiNTiLHAc,  E.  :  Histoire  General  du  Thedtre  en  France^  IV, 
Paris,  1909. 

MoLAND,  Louis  :  Moliere  et  la  Comedie  Italienne^  Paris,  1867. 

PouGEv,  A.  :  Monsigny  et  son  Temps;  V Opera  Comique  et  la 
Comedie  Italienne,  Paris,  1908. 

Perrucci,  a.:    Dell'  Arte  Rappresentativa  ed  all'  ImprovisOj 
Naples,  1699. 

Rasi,  L.:  /  Comici  Italiani;  biograjia,  bibliograjia,  iconograjia, 
Florence,  1897,  2  vols. 

RiccoBONi,  Louis  :  Histoire  du  ThMtre  Italien  depuis  la  Decadence 
de  la  Comedie  Latine,  Paris,  1728-31. 

Sand,  Maurice  :  Masques  et  Buffons,  Comedie  Italienne,  Textes 
et  Dessins,  Paris,  1860,  3  vols. 

Sibilia,  Alfred  :  Les  Italiens  dans  Vandenne  comtdie  frangaise, 
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Smith,  Winifred  :  The  Commedia  dell'  Arte;  a  Study  in  Italian 
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CHAPTER  V  :    HOLBERG  AND  FRENCH  LITERA- 
TURE OTHER  THAN  MOLIERE.  {Pages  199/:) 

Albrecmt,  Paul:  Lessings  Plagiate,  Hamburg,  1888-91,  6 
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Baron,  M.  B.  :  Le  ThMtre  de  M.  Baron,  Paris,  1759. 

BouRSAULT,  Edme  :  TliMtre  de  feu  Monsieur  Boursault,  Paris, 
1746.  Thedtre  Choisi;  nouvelle  edition,  ed.  Victor  Foumel, 
Paris,  1883. 


330  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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Cervantes,  M.  de:  Novelas  Ejemplares,  Valencia,  1797,  2 
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CoquiLLART,  G. :  CEuvres  Completes,  Reims-Paris,  1847. 

CoRNEtLLE,  Thomas:  Poemes  Bramatiques,  Paris,  1732. 

Dancourt,  F.  C.  :  Les  CEuvres;  nouvelle  edition,  revue  et  cor- 
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Despois,  K.  :  Le  Theatre  Franqais  sous  Louis  XIV,  Paris,  1 874. 

Destouches,  N.  :  CEuvres  Dramatiques,  Paris,  1811. 

DuFRESNY,  R. :  CEuvres;  nouvelle  edition,  corrigee  et  augment^e, 
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FouRNEL,  v.:  Le  Theatre  au  XVII^  Siecle;  La  Comedie,  Paris, 

1892. 

FouRNiER,  E.:  L' Espagne  et  ses  Comtdiens  en  France  au  XVIl^ 
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Hauteroche,  N.  Le  B.  :  Les  CEuvres  de  Thedtre  de  M.  Haute- 
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JoANNroES,  A.  :  La  Comedie  Frangaise  de  1680  a  1900;  Bic- 
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La  Sale,  A.  de:  Les  Qidyize  Joyes  de  Mariage  (Bibliotheque 
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Le  Gr.\nd,  M.  a.  :  Thedtre  de  Monsieur  Le  Grand,  Paris,  1882, 
4  vols. 

Lemaitre,  Jules  :  La  Comedie  en  France  apres  Moliere  et  le 
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au  XVP  Siecle,  Paris,  1866. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  331 

MoRiLLOT,  P.  :  Scarron  et  le  Genre  Burlesque^  Paris,  1888. 

QuiNAULT,  P.  DE  :  CEiwres  Choisies, precedeesd'une  nouvelle  notice 
sur  sa  vie  el  ses  ouvrnges,  Paris,  1824. 

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Saint- EvREMOND,  C.  de  M.  de  St.  D.  de  :  CEiwres  de  M.  de 
Saint- Evremond,  avec  la  vie  de  I'auteur^par  M.  desMaizeaux, 
Paris,  1857. 

Scarron,  F.  :  Le  Roman  Comique,  rem,  annott  et  precede  d'une 
introduction  par  Victor  Fournel,Pa.vis,  1857.  Les  Boutades  du 
Capilain  Matamore,  Paris,  1647.  CEuvres,  Amsterdam,  1 737. 

CHAPTER  VI  :  HOLBERG  AND  ENGLISH  LITERA- 
TURE. (Pages  23  5  J".) 

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at  Oxford,  London,  1714,  2  vols. 

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maid Series,  London,  1887. 

Elstob,  Eliz.  :  jin  English-Saxon  Homily  on  the  Birthday  of 
St.  Gregory,  London,  1709. 

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and  Poems,  ed.  A.  W.  Verity,  London,  1888. 

Farquhar,  George:  Best  Plays,  ed.  Wm.  Archer,  Mermaid 
Series,  London,  1888. 

Genest,  John  :  Some  Account  of  the  English  Stage  from  the  Res- 
toration in  1660  to  1830,  London,  1832. 


332  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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by  Lieut. -Col.  F.  Cunningham,  London,  1875. 

Olsvig,  ViLJAM  :  Det  store  Vendepunkf  i  Holhergs  Liv^  Bergen 
and  Cop.,  1895.  Om  Liidvig  Holhergs  saakaldte  Selvbiograjiy 
Cop.,  1905. 

Philipsen,  Chr.  F.  a.  :  Den  Holbergske  Literaturs  Historie  og 
Bibliograji,  Cop.,  1847. 

QuiLLER- Couch,  Lilian  M.  :  Reminiscences  of  Oxford  by  Oxford 
Men,  1559-1850,  Oxford  Historical  Society,  1892. 

Shadwell,  Thomas  :  The  Bramaiick  Works  of  Thomas  Shadwell, 
London,  1720,  4  vols. 

Spectator,  The,  ed.  G.  G.  Smith,  with  an  introductory  essay 
by  Austin  Dobson,  London,  1897-98. 

Tatler,  The,  ed.  G.  A.  Aitken,  London,  1898-99,  4  vols. 

Vanbrugh,  John:  Sir  John  Vanbrugh,  ed.  W.  C.  Ward,  Lon- 
don, 1893,  2  vols. 

WooDBRiDGE,  ELIZABETH:  Studics  in  JoTison's  Comedy   (Vale 

Studies  in  English,  V),  New  Haven,  1898. 
Wycherley,  William:  JVilliam  Wycherley,  ed.  W.  C.  Ward, 

Mermaid  Series,  London,  1888, 

CHAPTER  VII  :  HOLBERG  AND  GERMAN  LITER- 
ATURE. {Pages  289/:) 

Daae,  Ludvig  :  Om  Humoristen  og  Satiriken  J.  Lauremberg, 
Christiania,  1884. 

Gaedertz,  KarlT.  :  Das  niederdeutsche  Schauspiel  zum  Kultur- 
leben  Hamburgs,  Berlin,  1884,  2  vols. 

Lappenberg,  J.  M.:  Laurembergs  Scherz-Gedichte,  Stuttgart, 
1861. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  333 

Lauremberg,  Hans  W.  :  Fire  Skjemtedigte  i  Dansk  Oversae- 
telsefra  1652,  ed.  Julius  Paludan,  Cop.,  1889. 

Paludan,  Juuus  :  Holbergs  Forhold  til  det  Aeldre  TyskeDrama^ 
Cop.,  1889. 


NOTES 


NOTES 

Page  9.  For  a  description  of  the  officials,  see  Holberg's  Berge7is 
Beskrivelse,  part  2,  passim. 

Page  10.  Robert  Molesworth,  the  English  Minister  to  Den- 
mark in  the  year  1 692,  in  ./^n  Jccount  of  Denmark  as  it  was 
in  the  Year  1 692,  describes  the  Danes  as  almost  never  emerg- 
ing from  a  universal  mediocrity.  "  You  shall  never  meet  with 
men  of  extraordinary  parts  or  qualifications,"  he  says.  Moles- 
worth  is,  however,  a  prejudiced  witness.  He  had  been  dis- 
satisfied with  his  reception  at  the  Danish  court  and  so  he 
could  see  nothing  good  in  the  country.  When  the  book  ap- 
peared, the  Danish  ambassador  to  England,  Mogens  Skeel, 
thought  it  so  vile  a  slander  on  his  country  that  he  made  vig- 
orous, though  ineffectual,  efforts  to  have  the  book  condemned 
and  burned  by  the  common  hangman.  For  the  entire  sub- 
ject, see  Brasch,  passim. 

Page  1 1 .  For  the  marks  he  received  in  this  examination,  see 
J.  M0ller's  Mnemosyne^  II,  309,  310. 

Page  12.  Holberg's  expressed  admiration  for  these  women  of 
Christiansand  has  led  certain  biographere,  who  must  have  a 
love  affair  in  the  dramatist's  life,  to  look  for  it  in  the  events 
of  this  winter.  Such  romancers  (cf.  Vilhelm  Andereen's  Eras- 
mus MontanuSf  in  Litteratur  Billeder,  I,  2  ff. ;  HvorforPHol- 
bergske  Studie  i  en  Act^  by  Anna  Borch,  Cop.,  1888)  have 
discovered  that  Holberg's  second  cousin,  Bishop  Stroud,  with 
whom  he  lived  in  Christiansand,  had  a  younger  sister.  And 
just  because  the  young  dramatist  was  in  love  with  her,  he  was 
enthusiastic  in  his  approval  of  the  young  women  of  Bergen  ! 

Page  13.*  His  Be  officio  hominis  et  ciuis,  which  is  a  resume  of  his 
Be  Jure  7iaturae  et  gentium. 

Page  13.t  He  did  write,  while  he  was  in  college,  four  conven- 
tional Latin  declamations:  (l)  Be  peregratione^  1710;  (2) 
In  laudem  historiarum,  1711;  (3)  Be  praestantia  hodiernae 
musicae^  1712  ;  (4)  Be  linguanim,  1 7 1 3 .  These  declamations 
were  never  printed,  and  unfortunately  are  all  lost. 


338  NOTES 

Page  1 5 .  He  tells  us  that  he  went  particularly  to  the  library  at 
the  College  des  Quatres  Nations  because  he  could  find  there 
the  greatest  number  of  modern  books.  The  one  volume  for 
which  everyone  made  a  mad  rush  each  morning  when  the 
library  opened  was  Bayle's  Dictionary. 

Page  2 1 .  He  was  bom  in  Flensburg  in  1 690,  went  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Halle  in  1 706,  and  matriculated  in  the  University 
of  Copenhagen  in  1714.  Soon  after,  he  obtained  a  travelling 
fello^\ship  in  medicine,  which  he  held  for  three  years,  and 
in  1719  had  only  recently  been  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for 
a  professorship  in  the  Univemty  of  Copenhagen. 

Page  26.  This  name  is  supposed  to  be  a  palpable  pseudonym 
for  a  certain  Sille  Gad,  a  clever  woman  of  Bergen.  See  Daae's 
Optegnelser  til  Holbergs  Biograji,  p.  26. 

Page  34.  For  the  documents  relating  to  this  commission,  see 
Danske  Samlinger^  first  series.  III,  35  8.  They  were  first  used 
to  explain  the  provenience  of  Holberg's  first  Latin  Epistle 
by  Olsvig,  in  Det  store  Vendepunkt  i  Holbergs  Liv. 

Page  36.  Lud.  Holberg  Epistola  ad  vinim  perillnstrem^  1728, 
p.  188:  "Scripta  erat  ab  amico,  qui  consilium  mihi  dedit 
accelerandi  itineris,  cum  inimici  mei  insidias  absenti  strue- 
rent." 

Page  37.*  On  this  date  Hans  Gram,  in  a  letter  to  Fabricius, 
mentions  the  work. 

Page  3  7 .  t  Olsvig,  in  Det  store  Vendepunkt  i  Holbergs  Liv,  was  the 
first  of  the  fanciful  interpreters.  He  tried  to  make  the  Latin 
date,  pridie  Calend.  Januar  Anno  MDCCXXVH,  mean  De- 
cember 31,  1 726.  The  letter,  then,  he  would  have  us  believe, 
is  Holberg's  strong  apology  for  his  life,  written  immediately 
after  his  return  from  abroad,  when  he  had  first  lieaixl  of  the 
cabal  formed  against  him.  Furthermore,  Olsvig  woidd  have 
the  "  ?v>  perillustris"  a  no  less  eminent  person  than  King 
FrederiklV.  These  theories  can  by  no  means  be  accepted  in 
their  entirety.  Olsvig's  effort  to  make  the  date  on  the  letter 
read  December  31,  1 726,  is  certainly  not  successful.  Not  only 


NOTES  339 

is  it  impossible  to  make  the  Latintwords  mean  what  he  wishes, 
but  much  of  the  letter  can  be  shown  to  have  been  written  in 
1727.  His  assumption,  furthermore,  that  the  '"''  vir  perillus- 
tris"  is  the  king,  is  highly  fanciful.  Other  phases  of  his  in- 
terpretation have  been  received  with  greater  credence.  Just 
Bing,  in  his  Holbergs  F0rste  Lexmttsbrev^  believes  with  him  that 
the  letter  is  Holberg's  apology  for  his  life,  written  in  Latin 
because  he  was  anxious  to  show  his  skill  in  the  subject  in 
which  he  was  professor.  He  believes,  however,  that  the  letter 
is  addressed  through  Rostgaard  to  Count  U.  A.  Holstein, 
then  patron  of  the  university,  and  the  one  man  in  all  Denmark 
to  whom  a  letter  such  as  Bing  assumes  tliis  to  be  would  inost 
appropriately  be  addressed. 

Unfortunately,  this  interesting  theory  is  not  sufficiently 
established  by  facts.  In  the  firet  place,  it  is  almost  impossible 
that  Holberg  could  have  known  of  this  proposed  commission. 
The  proposal  never  came  to  the  notice  of  the  king,  as  shown 
by  evidence  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Carl  S.  Petereen,  Under 
Librarian  of  the  Royal  Libi-ary  in  Copenhagen.  Deikmann 
left  Copenhagen  early  in  1 725,  never  to  return,  and  the  plan 
was  probably  so  completely  forgotten  by  April,  172  6,  that 
no  friend  of  Holberg  could  have  heard  of  it  then.  If  Holberg 
had  believed  that  this  commission  was  actively  plotting  against 
him  in  the  spring  of  1726,  he  would  scarcely  have  waited 
almost  two  years  before  finishing  tlie  apology  for  his  life  which 
was  to  be  his  answer  to  their  machinations.  Finally,  there  is 
nothing  apologetic  about  the  epistle. 

Fage  47.  The  fii'st  translation  appeared  in  1 742  under  the  title, 
^  Jaiirney  to  the  Wo)id  Underground,  by  Nicholas  K/imius. 
Translated  f  ram  the  Original.  A  second  edition  of  this  transla- 
tion appeared  in  1755.  Since  then  there  have  been  three  trans- 
lations, the  last  in  1828. 

Page  50.  The  existence  of  three  different  vereions  of  the  play 
gives  some  colour  to  this  supposition.  The  first  version  exists 
only  in  a  manuscript  preserved  in  the  University  Library  at 
Copenhagen  (Folio  MS.  No.  149);  the  second  vereion  ap- 
peared in  the  edition  of  1  745  ;  the  third  and  best  known  ver- 


340  NOTES 

sion  appeared  in  the  posthumous  collection  of  his  plays,  pub- 
lished in  1754. 

Page  5  1  .*  See  a  letter  by  Holberg  written  to  the  actore  in  1753. 
In  it  he  says :  "  Jeg  har  at  igjennemsee  Stykker  og  at  d0mme 
om  deres  Capacitet  som  antages  til  at  agere." 

Page  5  1  .tThe  performance  on  April  14,1 747,  which  Overekou 
(II,  29)  gives  as  the  first,  was  undoubtedly  private. 

Page  5  6.  For  this  will,  see  Wille  H0yberg:  Kjobenhavnske 
Samlinger  af  rare  trykte  og  utrykte  Piecer,  No.  XV,  p.  457. 
The  girl  had  to  satisfy  the  following  conditions :  ( 1 )  She  had 
to  be  Danish  bom;  (2)  to  have  at  least  one  Norwegian  or 
Danish  parent ;  (3)  to  be  of  spotless  reputation ;  (4)  to  be  too 
poor  to  furnish  her  own  dowry.  To  one  girl  fulfilling  these 
requirements  a  dowry  was  to  be  given  each  year. 

Page  63.  Neither  ^  New  Tear's  Prologue  to  a  Comedy  nor  The 
Mineral  of  Banish  Comedy  is  included  in  this  classification. 
They  are  mere  clever  strings  of  dramatic  business,  concocted 
to  serve  one  particular  occasion.  They  do  not,  therefore,  de- 
serve to  be  classed  with  his  comedies  proper. 

Page  74.  Professor  Vilhelm  Andersen,  in  his  essay  Erasmus 
Montanus  {Litteratur  Billeder,  I,  1-28),  develops  this  idea 
in  his  usual  brilliant  fashion.  To  him  I  owe  much  in  my 
analysis. 

Page  78.  Om  Ludvig  Holbergs  Jeppe  paa  BJerget,  p.  1 .  I  have 
followed  in  some  detail  Dr.  Brandes's  analysis  of  this  play. 

Page  86.  Grevens  og  Friherrens  Komedie ;  en  dramatisk  Satire 
fra  Christian  Vs  Tid,  ed.  Sophus  Birket  Smith. 

Page  87.  For  example,  the  talk  (III,  2)  about  the  social  cus- 
toms of  a  lying-in  chamber  may  have  given  him  the  original 
idea  of  writing  an  entire  comedy  on  the  same  subject. 

Page  1 07.  Certain  figures  in  Hofoerg's  comedies  are,  to  be  sure, 
clearly  fashioned  on  some  one  of  Moliere's  characters.  Jeroni- 
mus  in  Bet  Lykkelige  Skibbrtid,  for  example,  is  a  copy  of 
Trissotin,  and  Jeronimus  in  Ben  Honnette  Ambition  is  a.  copy  of 


NOTES  341 

M.  Jourdain,  Yet  in  each  of  these  cases  Holberg  has  changed 
the  nature  of  his  character  enough  to  make  his  satire  subtly 
different  in  kind .  Trissotin  is  the  embodiment  of  the  hterary 
ideals  of  the  learned  ladies.  Moliere  shows  through  him  that 
literary  taste  cultivated  for  the  social  market-place  is  pedantry 
and  affectation,  "Qu'un  sot  savant  est  sot  plus  qu'un  sot 
ignorant. ' '  Rosiflengius  is  an  essentially  different  sort  of  fool. 
He  is  a  professional  poetical  encomiast.  Moliere  is  satirizing 
pedantic  preciosiie;iio\herg,the  human  delight  in  fulsome 
flattery.  The  former  foible  is  essentially  intellectual ;  the  latter, 
largely  social.  M.  Jourdain  pui'sues  the  graces  of  high  society 
with  a  headlong  intensity  that  is  utterly  extravagant ;  Jeroni- 
mus  seeks  a  title  by  timid,  devious  diplomacy.  The  former 
lacks  intellectual  decency ;  the  latter,  social  savoir  faire.  In 
changing  the  nature  of  the  foibles,  Holberg  always  changes 
the  nature  of  the  laughter  that  they  provoke. 

Page  108.*Legrelle  says  (p.  145)  :  "  Le  ridicule  de  la  rusticite, 
c'est-a-dire  celui  de  M.  de  Pourceaugnac,  lui  [Holberg]  a 
foumi  jusqu'a  trois  comedies,  Le  Onze  Jimii  (Den  Ellefte  Ju- 
nii) ,  Le  Petit  Paysan  en  Gage  {Den  Pansatte  Bonde-Dreng) , 
et  Jeppe  de  Berg  {Jeppe  paa  Bjerget) . ' '  He  makes  no  further 
comparison  of  the  plays.  The  first  of  the  three  Danish  plays 
is  distinctly  similar  in  plot  to  Moiisieur  de  Pourceaugnac ;  the 
other  two  are  like  it  only  in  having  a  fooled  rustic  for  the 
central  character. 

Page  108.t  Legrelle,  in  his  fourth  chapter,  called  "Des  Analo- 
gies du  Style,"  gives  the  most  complete  collection  of  this  sort 
of  similarity.  Indeed,  his  list  is  more  than  complete.  More  than 
once  he  attributes  some  extremely  conventional  comic  device 
found  in  Holberg  to  the  influence  of  Moliere,  simply  because 
he  finds  Holberg  in  these  cases  more  like  Moliere  than  like 
Plautus.On  pp.  301,  302,  for  example,  he  proves  by  this 
curiously  fallacious  logical  method  that  so  inevitable  a  comic 
convention  as  quarrels  between  man  and  wife  are  copies  of 
similar  quarrels  in  Moliere.  Almost  half  of  the  similarities 
presented  by  Legrelle  in  this  chapter  are  of  this  general  and 
inconclusive  sort. 


342  NOTES 

Page  110.  Le  Malade  Imaginaire,  I,  5. 

Page  111.  Den  Shmdesl0se,  1,7.  Holberg  uses  exactly  the  same 
device  in  Pemilles  Korte  Fr0ken- Stand ^  I,  7. 

Page   112.*7Jzc?.,II,  2. 

Page   112.t7Z»J6?.,II,  7,  8. 

Page   114.  /Z»«c?.,  Ill,  4. 

Pflg-e  115.*  Xe*  Femmes  Savantes,  III,  3.  Legrelle  suggests 
(p.  330)  other  examples,  Melicerte^  1,1,  and  the  conversation 
between  Alain  and  Georgette  in  UEcole  des  Femmes^  I,  3. 
The  quarrel  between  Cleante,  Harpagon,  and  Elise  {V  Avare^ 
I,  4)  is  also  a  case  in  point. 

Page  1 1 5.t  Legrelle  gives  as  an  example  Jacob  von  Tyhoe^  III, 
5,  where  the  braggart  soldier  and  Stygotius,  the  pedant, 
quarrel.  See  also  Henrich  og Pemille,  II,  7,  and  Det  Lykkelige 
Skibbnid,  I,  6. 

Page  116.*  Henrich  og  PemiHe,  III,  3. 

Page  11 6. t  Legrelle  does  not  agree  with  me  on  this  point.  He 
asserts,  for  example,  that  Moliere's  trick  of  making  a  phrase 
ridiculous  by  mere  repetition,  as  the  "  le  pauvre  homme  " 
of  Orgon  in  Tartuffe.,  1,4,  and  the  "  sans  dot "  of  both  Valere 
and  Harpagon  in  UJlvare,  I,  5,  is  used  by  Holberg.  Unfor- 
tunately for  his  argument,  the  principal  example  tliat  he  gives 
(pp.  338,339)  of  this  repetition  in  Holberg,  the  "ligesaahos 
os"  in  Ulysses  von  Ithacia^  II,  2,  is  demonstrably  modelled 
on  a  scene  in  one  of  the  comedies  in  Gherardi's  Thtdtre  lialien 
(see  infra,  chap,  iv) . 

Page  119.  Den  Honnette  Ambition,  I,  3. 

Page  121,*  Den  Politiske  Kandest0ber,  III,  4. 

Page  121.t  Page70. 

Page  123.  Erasmus Montanus,  I,  5. 

Page  125.  Den  Ellefte  Junii,  V,  9. 


NOTES  343 

Page  133.  Mascarade^  II,  3. 

Page  139.*  Robert  Prutz  (Luding  Holberg,  pp.  148-154,  pas- 
sim) makes  a  number  of  general  assertions  about  Holberg's 
relation  to  Gherardi's  collection.  The  following  two  are  char- 
acteristic. He  says  (p.  149)  that  Holberg  took  from  Ghe- 
rardi  "nicht  nur  den  Stoff  seiner  meisten  Stiicke,  nicht  nur 
einzelne  Red  en  u.  Gegenreden,  sondem  auch  gauze  ange- 
fiihrte  Scene  u.  Situationen."  Again,  he  says:  "Holberg 
entfernte  die  abstracten  Masken  der  Commedia  dell'  Arte  u. 
setzte  an  ihreStelle  lebendige  wirkliche  Charaktere."  Prutz 
makes  no  attempt  either  to  establish  definite  points  of  resem- 
blance or  to  define  with  any  precision  Holberg's  debt  to  this 
popular  form  of  drama.  All  other  critics  who  have  discussed 
Holberg's  relation  to  Gherardi  havecontented  themselves  with 
giving  lists  of  borrowed  comic  devices.  Dietrich  (Pulcinella, 
etc.,  p.  2  73)  realized  the  need  of  a  thorough  study  of  this 
question.  He  says  :  "  Es  wiirde  nicht  schwer  sein,  die  Ent- 
stehung  seines  [Holberg's]  lustigen  Dienerpaares,  Hendrik 
[szc]  und  Pemille,  nahernachzuweisen.  .  .  .  Aber  die  Quel- 
lenuntersuchung  miisste  doch  wohl  .  .  .  viel  umfassender  und 
scharfer  gefuhrt  werden." 

Page  1  39.t  Flaminio  Scala,  author  of  the  earliest  and  most  im- 
portant Canevas,  belonged  to  the  company  of  Gelosi  which 
began  to  play  in  Blois,  January  25,  15  77.  Francesco  An- 
dreini,  the  author  of  the  equally  important  Bravure  del  Capi- 
tano  Spavento^  played  with  his  remarkable  vdfe,  Isabella,  in 
Paris  from  1  605  to  1  607.  Dominique  Biancolelli,  who  played 
in  Paris  from  1  660  to  1 688,  made  a  collection  called  Scenario 
de  Dominique.  And  finally,  Evaristo  Gheraixii,  the  author  of 
the  French  collection  most  important  for  our  immediate  pur- 
pose, played  in  France  from  October,  1689,  when  he  made  his 
debut  as  Arlequin,  until  the  Italians  were  dismissed  in  1 697. 

Page  1 40.*  For  an  interesting  account  of  Moliere's  relations  with 
this  troupe,  see  Molilre  et  les  I/a/iens,  in  Le  Mo/ieriste,  Novem- 
ber 1,  1879,  pp.  237  ft'.  The  Italian  actors  received  a  much 
greater  royal  subsidy  at  this  time  than  any  other  company. 


344  NOTES 

After  1 664  it  received  1  5,000  livres,  while  the  large  consol- 
idated company  which  later  played  in  the  Hotel  Guenegaud 
never  received  more  than  12,000  livres. 

Page  1 40.  t  Holberg's  acquaintance  with  the  commedia  dell'  arte 
as  played  in  Rome  (see  chap,  i,  p.  16)  ought  to  be  recalled 
in  this  connection.  He  describes  {Autobiography ^  p.  96)  his 
relation  with  the  Italian  comedians  as  follows  :  "  The  loneli- 
ness in  the  house  where  I  lived  lasted  until  the  end  of  Decem- 
ber. But  as  soon  as  the  old  year  was  over  and  all  the  jugglers, 
pantomimers,  actors  and  rope  dancers  in  Italy  streamed  into 
Rome,  tlie  house  was  filled  with  comedians,  who  kept  up  their 
buffoonery  far  into  the  night,  much  to  my  annoyance.  .  .  . 
After  Christmas  twelve  bands  of  comedians  came  to  Rome. 
Each  group  is  accustomed  to  choose  one  comedy,  which  it 
plays  day  after  day.  The  company  lodged  in  our  house,  chose 
a  play  about  a  doctor,  which  was  very  much  like  Moliere's  Le 
Medecin  malgre  lid. ' '  Holberg's  interest  in  the  commedia  dell' 
arte  may  have  been  first  stimulated  by  his  association  with 
these  comedians. 

Page  141.  Pulcinella  (French,  Polichinello)  has  been  thought 
to  be  a  resurrection  of  Maccus,  the  mimus  albiis  of  the  Fabu- 
lae  Attellanae  (see  Riccoboni's  Histoire  du  Theatre  Italien^ 
pp.  316  ff.  ;  Sand's  Masques  et  Buffons ;  and  A.  Dietrich's 
Pulcinella,  etc.,  chap,  x,  passim).  In  France,  Polichinelle 
early  (circa  1630)  left  the  comedians  for  troupes  of  mario- 
nettes. He  later  had  his  own  theatre.  Polichinelle  also  ti'av- 
elled  to  England  about  1  688,  where  he  became,  in  Punch  of 
the  puppet  shows,  the  monster  of  muixlerous  ferocity  that  he 
has  remained  to  this  day. 

Page  142.  Besides  these  men,  the  following  authors,  known  also 
in  French  literature,  wrote  plays  which  appear  in  Gherar- 
di's  collection.  La  Motte,  Le  Noble,  and  Montchesney;  the 
follo\ving,  who  are  known  only  through  their  work  for  the 
Italians,  Nolant  de  Fatourville,  Brugiere  de  Bai-ante,  Louis 
Biancolelli,  and  Evaristo  Gheraixii ;  and  the  two  following, 
who  are  mere  names,  Mongin  and  Borspan. 


NOTES  345 

Page  143.  The  following  plays  in  Ghei-ardi  are  formed  on  a 
plot  consisting  of  these  four  principal  elements :  Arlequin, 
Lingere  du  Palais ;  Arlequin,  Empermr  dans  la  Lune  ;  La  Cause 
des  Femmes;  Le  Divorce;  Mezzetin,  Grand  Sophy  de  Perse; 
Arlequin,  Homme  h  Bonne  Fortune;  La  Coquette;  Arlequin^ 
Esope;  Les  Chinois;  La  Fille  de  bon  Sens;  Les  Mal-Assortis ; 
Les  Originaux;  Le  Bel  Esprit;  Arlequin^  Defenseur  du  beau 
Sexe  ;  Le  Retour  de  la  Foire  de  Bezons ;  Les  Bains  de  la  Porte 
Saint- Bernard. 

Page  144.*  These  are  Jean  de  France^  Jacob  von  Tyboe^  Den 
Stundesl0se^  Pernilles  Korten  Fr0ken-Stand^  Don  Ranudo,  Den 
Honnette  Ambition^  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbrud,  Kilde-Reysen. 

Page  144.t  Den  Politiske  Kandest0ber  and  Gert  Westphaler. 

Page  145.  In  only  one  play,  Le  Bourgeois  Gentilhomme,  does 
the  plot  appear  in  all  its  formality.  In  Le  Malade  Imaginaire 
there  is  the  important  difference  which  I  have  indicated. 

Page  149.*  Many  of  the  details  of  this  costume,  e.g. ,  the  black 
mask  and  the  pointed  hat,  are  inheritances  from  the  more 
primitive  Pulcinella.  The  swoixi  is  apparently  a  souvenir  of 
the  time  when  he  was  usually  the  servant  of  the  Capitano 
Spavento.  In  twenty  of  the  forty-two  comedies  in  Scala's  col- 
lection he  plays  the  part.  The  interrelation  of  the  various  fig- 
ures of  the  commedia  dell ' arte,  esich  one  popular  in  some 
one  locality,  is,  however,  so  complicated  a  subject  that  one 
can  pronounce  definitely  on  any  of  these  points  only  after 
more  extended  and  careful  investigations  than  have  hitherto 
been  made.  In  one  or  two  cases  Arlequin  took  off  liis  mask 
and  made  an  attempt  to  identify  himself  with  the  character 
he  was  impereonating.  See,  e.g.,  La  Fille  Sava7ite,  scene  8 
(G.  Ill,  84) .  In  Les  deux  Arlequins,  we  know  from  a  note  of 
Gherardi's  (II,  298)  that  Arlequin,  in  parodying  Baron,  the 
actor,  took  off  his  conventional  costume. 

Page  149.t  Angelo  Constantini  invented  the  character  Mezzetin 
in  1683.  He  had  been  the  underetudy  of  the  famous  Domi- 
nique Biancolelli  for  the  role  of  Arlequin.  Tired  of  being  a 


346  NOTES 

mere  substitute,  he  invented  the  new  figure,  so  that  he  could 
appear  every  time  the  company  presented  a  play.  To  his  new 
part  he  inevitably  brought  most  of  the  good  points  of  his  old 
one.  Mezzetin  is,  indeed,  so  faithful  a  copy  of  Arlequin  that 
in  one  play,  Les  deux  Arlequins^  he  is  called  Jirlequin  cadet. 
When  Dominique  died  in  August,  1688,  Constantini  natu- 
rally played  the  part  of  Arlequin,  but  because  of  the  deep 
respect  which  the  whole  company  felt  for  Dominique's  mem- 
ory, the  old  understudy  kept  the  name  and  costume  of  Mez- 
zetin. In  October,  1689,  Evaristo  Gherardi  presented  Arle- 
quin again  in  his  own  proper  person.  In  the  plays  given, 
therefore,  between  the  death  of  Dominique  and  the  debut  of 
Gherardi  (Ze  Marchand  Ditpe^  Colombine^  Femme  Vengee, 
La  Descente  de  Mezzetin  aux  Enfers^  and  Mezzetin.^  Grand 
Sophy  de  Perse) ,  it  is  only  fair  to  regard  Mezzetin  as  Arle- 
quin playing  under  a  different  stage  name. 

Page  151.  For  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  site  of  this  spring 
and  the  customs  which  grew  up  around  it,  see  Varvov  Kilde 
og  Holbergs  ^^Kilderejse,"  by  R.  M.  Stolpe,  Ban.  Sam.^  2d 
series.  III,  77-79. 

Page  \  53.*  La  Cause  des  FemmeSy  scene  5  (G.  II,  25) ,  "Arle- 
quin deguisS  en  Baron ;  "La  Critique  de  la  Cause  des  Femmes^ 
scene  3  (G.  II,  70) , ' '  Arlequin  en  Chevalier ;"  Le  Marchand 
Dupe^  I,  6  (G.  II,  169),  "  Mezzetin  en  Marquis;"  Arle- 
quin^ Homme  d,  Bonne  Fortune^  scene  5  (G.  II,  367) ,  "Arle- 
quin en  Vicomte;"  La  Coquette, III,  3  (G.  II,  156), "Arle- 
quin en  Marquis  ;" Les  Chinois,  I,  6  (G.  IV,  179),  "Arle- 
quin en  Baron  de  la  Dindoniere;"  Les  Originaux,  II,  3  (G. 
IV,  332),  "Arlequin  en  le  Vidame  de  Cotignac;"  Les 
Momies  d'Egypte,  I,  4  (G.  VI,  273),  "  Arlequin  en  Baron 
de  Gronpignac." 

Page  \5S.\  La  Cause  des  Femmes  (G.  I,  28)  and  Les  Momies 
d'Egypte  (G.  VI,  273). 

Page  1 53.1  The  first  disguise  he  assumes  in  Les  Chinois  (G.  IV, 
179)  ;  the  second  in  Les  Origirumx  (G.  IV,  332). 


NOTES     .  347 

Page  155.* Ben  Honnette  Ambition,  II,  4. 

Page  1 5  5  .t  In  Henrich  og  Pernille,  where  Henrich  impersonates 
Leander,  he  too  adopts  some  of  the  traditions  of  Arlequin's 
gentleman  disguise.  He  entere  in  his  porte-chaise  (I,  6) ,  shout- 
ing to  his  servants,  and  then  obsequiously  begs  pardon  for  his 
precipitate  entrance.  He  also  makes  the  same  efforts  to  app>ear 
to  be  on  terms  of  easy  familiarity  with  nobility.  Mascarille, 
in  Les  Precieuses  Ridicules,  of  course,  makes  his  entrance  in 
a  porte-chaise  and  is  also  beaten  out  by  his  master,  as  is 
Henrich  at  the  end  of  Den  Honnette  Ambition.  Yet  the  disguise 
of  Mascarille  has  not  as  many  points  of  contact  with  Henrich 
as  that  of  Arlequin.  It  seems  to  be  itself  a  clever  adaptation, 
for  the  purpose  of  a  special  travesty,  of  the  same  Italian  tra- 
dition ;  for  Arlequin  used  to  disguise  as  a  noble  gentleman 
long  before  the  plays  in  Gherardi's  collection  were  composed. 
(Cf.  n  Lunatico  in  Scenario  di  Dominique  Parfaict,  p.  169, 
where  Arlequin  appears  as  Marquis  de  Blanchefleur) . 

Page  \  56.*  La  Matrone  d' Ephese  (G.  I,  18  ff.)  and  La  Lin- 
gere  du  Palais  (G.  I,  65  ff,).  It  is  significant  that  both  ex- 
amples of  this  disguise  occur  in  two  of  the  earliest  and  most 
fragmentary  of  the  plays  in  Gherai-di's  collection.  The  French 
authors  who  wrote  for  the  Italians  discarded  this  disguise  as 
too  farcical  to  appear  in  any  of  their  plays  that  were  delib- 
erately composed. 

Page  1 56.t  Mascarade,  I,  11 ,  and  Uden  Hoved  og  Hale,  II,  6. 

Page  156.t  Riccoboni  (p.  65)  describes  these  lazzi  as  follows: 
"Nous  appelons  lazzi  ce  que  1' Arlequin  ou  les  autres  Acteurs 
masques  font  au  milieu  d'une  Scene  qu'ils  interrompent  par 
des  epouvantes  ou  par  des  badineries  etrangeres  au  sujet  de 
la  matiere  que  Ton  traite,  et  a  laquelle  on  est  pourtant  tou- 
jours  oblige  de  revenir:  or  ce  sont  ces  inutilites  qui  ne 
consistent  que  dans  le  jeu  que  I'Acteur  invente,  suivant  son 
ggnie,  que  les  Comediens  Italiens  nomment  lazzi. "  The  form 
"  lazzi  "  was  used  both  as  a  singular  and  a  plural  by  the  time 
of  Gherardi.  The  origin  of  the  word  is  obscure.  It  is  perhaps 
connected  vnth  the  Tuscan  lacci  bands,  because  the  physical 


348  NOTES 

farce  bound  the  action  together.  Cf.  a  discussion  by  E.  Re  : 
La  Commedia  veneziana  e  il  Goldoni  (Giomale  Storico, 
LVIII,  367  ff.)- 

Page  157.  G.I,  114. 

Page  158.*  Melampe,  III,  4.  See  also  Hexerie,  III,  i,  where  Arv 
is  compelled  by  the  exigencies  of  an  imaginary  dialogue  to 
drag  himself  about  by  the  hair. 

Page  158.t  Legrelle  (p.  344)  asserts  that  this  comic  device, 
especially  as  it  appears  in  Melampe^  is  a  copy  of  a  similar 
device  practised  in  Moliere's  Amphitryoii  (I,  l).  There  the 
slave  rehearses  the  announcement  of  Amphitryon's  victory  to 
his  wife  Alcmene  by  an  imaginary  conversation,  in  which  he 
lets  his  lantern  represent  the  lady.  He  speaks,  of  course,  for 
both  himself  and  Alcmene,  undoubtedly  making  appropri- 
ate changes  in  his  voice  and  manner  of  speech.  But  the  physi- 
cal farce  which  is  the  important  part  of  the  trick  in  both  the 
Italian  and  Danish  comedy  is  wholly  absent  from  this  scene 
of  Moliere.  Therefore,  even  if  the  device  as  it  appeal's  in 
Gherardi  were  a  modification  of  Sosie's  actions  here,  I  believe 
that  Holberg  none  the  less  adopted  it  from  the  Italian  source, 
after  Sosie's  trick  had  been  transformed  to  suit  the  charac- 
teristic antics  of  Arlequin. 

Page  159.  This  disguise  Arlequin  adopts  in  Arlequin.,  Empereur 
dans  la  Lune,  Arlequin^  Chevalier  du  Soleil,  Arlequin,  Homme 
d  Bonne  Fortune,  and  Le  Bel  Esprit. 

Page  160.*  I)o7i  Ranudo,  V,  4. 

Page  1 60. t  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Holberg  knew  that  the 
potentate  disguise  was  as  much  a  tradition  of  Gherardi 's  the- 
atre as  of  Moliere's.  When  Isabella  and  Leonora  are  inventing 
their  plot  to  pass  off'  the  lover  as  the  Prince  of  Abyssinia, 
they  decide  that,  bold  as  it  is,  there  is  more  reason  to  count 
on  the  success  of  his  disguise  than  upon  similar  ones  in  Le 
Bourgeois  Gentilhomme  and  Arlequin,  Empereur  dans  la  Lune 
{Don  Ranudo,  IV,  i) . 


NOTES  349 

Page  161.  La  Fille  de  bon  Sens^  I,  7-13.  A  Danish  translation 
of  this  comedy  was  played,  May  24,  1728,  under  the  title 
Mange  Hunde  om  et  Been.  See  Overekou,  p.  250,  for  con- 
temporary advertisements  of  the  play. 

Page  163.*G.  II,  175. 

Page  \6c,.\  Den  Stundesl0se,  II,  10. 

Page  164.*  Uden  Hoved  og  Hale,  III,  2. 

Page  164.t  Pernilles  Korte  Fr0ken-Stand,  III,  7. 

Page  165.*  G.  IV,  77. 

Page  1  65.t  She  is  palpably  the  manager  and  director  of  the  plot 
in  Colombine,  Avocat;  La  Cause  des  Femmes;  Le  Divorce; 
Le  Marchand  Dupe  (since,  for  reasons  already  given,  there 
was  Arlequin  in  this  play,  her  plans  here  naturally  do  not 
involve  his  execution  of  them)  :  La  Coquette  and  Les  Bains 
de  la  Porte  Saint-Bernard,  La  Fille  de  bon  Se7is,  and  La  Fon- 
*  taine  de  Sapience. 

Page  166.  Arlequin  and  Colombine  marry  at  the  close  of  the 
following :  Arlequin,  Empereur  dans  la  Lune;  Le  Marchand 
Dupe  (here  she  marries  Pasquariel,  because  there  is  no  Arle- 
quin in  the  play)  ;  Mezzetin,  Grand  Sophy  de  Perse  (here  it  is 
Mezzetin  for  the  same  reason  as  above)  ;  Arlequin,  Homme 
a  Bonne  Fortune  ;  Les  deux  Arlequins  ;  Ulysse  et  Circe  ;  La  Fille 
de  ban  Sens ;  Les  Promenades  de  Paris. 

Page  167.*  In  the  folloAving  plays,  Pemille  invents  the  plot  in 
which  she  makes  the  disguises  of  Henrich  play  an  important 
part :  Jean  de  France,  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbrud,  Den  Stundesl0se, 
Den  Honnette  Ambition,  Kilde-Reysen.  In  the  following  plays, 
Pemille  also  invents  the  plot,  which  she  carries  on,  however, 
with  little  or  no  help  from  Henrich,  by  her  owti  disguises  or 
by  the  help  of  other  characters  than  Henrich :  Den  pantsatte 
Bonde-Dreng,  Gert  Westphaler,  Philosophus  udi  egen  Indbild- 
ning,  and  Republiquen. 

Page  1  6  7.  tin  the  following  plays,  Henrich  and  Pernille  marry  : 


350  NOTES 

Jean  de  France^  Mascarade^  Henrich  ogPemille,  and  Det  Lyk- 
kelige  Skibbnid.  In  Henrich's  last  speech  in  Kilde-Reysen^ 
there  is  a  hint  of  marriage  :  "  Denne  gode  Jomfrue  er  dog 
ikke  den  f0rste,  som  er  bleven  cureret  ved  Kilden,  vil  og  ikke 
blive  den  sidst.  Er  det  ikke  sandt  Peniille  ?  " 

Page  168.  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbrud^  IV,  10. 

Page  169.  Page  197. 

Page  170.  Professor  Vilhelm  Andersen's  excellent  essay  on 
Holberg's  Henrik  {Litteratur Billeder^  Anden  Samling,  Cop. , 
1907)  has  suggested  to  me  many  of  the  ideas  about  Henrik 
which  I  express  here. 

Page  171.  Den  Poliiiske  Kandest0ber^  I,  6. 

Page  173.  Mascarade,  II,  3. 

Page  174.*  Den  Shindesl0se,  II,  3. 

Page  174.tHe  appears  in  the  foUomng  plays,  in  all  of  which 
he  is  called  a  "  Gaai'ds  Karl :  "  Jean  de  France,  Mascarade, 
Henrich  og  Pemille,  Hexerie,  Den  Honnette  Ambition,  Jule- 
stue,  Kilde-Rejsen,  and  Republiquen. 

Page  1 75.*  Pedrolino  is  more  than  the  reappearance  of  Pagli- 
accio  under  a  new  name.  He  has  also  inherited  traits  of  a 
figure  called  Bertoldo  or  Bertoldino.  This  figure  owes  its 
existence  to  a  certain  Giulio  Cesare  Croce  (1550-1609),of 
Bologna.  He  was  an  improvisor  and  popular  poet  who  sang 
on  the  streets  the  adventures  of  a  fictitious  Bertoldo.  These 
songs  were  so  popular  that  he  decided  to  print  them.  His  first 
collection  he  called  The  Life  of  Bertoldo,  the  second  The  Life 
of  Bertoldino.  The  enormous  popularity  of  these  figures  ex- 
tended to  the  theatre,  so  that  by  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury every  company  which  played  the  commedia  deW  arte  had 
its  Bertoldo  or  Bertoldino.  The  latter  figure,  a  sort  of  farmer, 
a  mixture  of  naivetS  and  rustic  shrewdness  and  a  great  enun- 
ciator  of  peasant  aphorisms,  had  a  particular  vogue.  From 
this  Bertoldino,  Padrolino,  and  through  him  Pierrot,  has  in- 
herited much. 


NOTES  351 

Page  1 75. t  The  first  recorded  mention  of  Pierrot  occurs  in  La 
Suite  du  Festin  de  Pierre^  first  performed  February  4,  1673. 
(See  MS.  483,  484,  Bibliotheque  de  Grand  Opera  de  Paris, 
Catalogue  Soleinne,  Vol.  V,  No.  329,  or  Copie  de  la  Traduc- 
tion du  Scenario  de  Dominique,  MS.  in  Bibfiotheque  Nation- 
ale;  see  Catalogue  Soleinne,  Vol.  Ill,  No.  3348,  fol.  169.) 
"  Cette  scene  se  passe  a  la  campagne.  Je  [Arlequin]  fais 
tomber  aux  pieds  de  Spezzafer  le  cor  de  chasse  dont  il  sonne, 
en  suite  en  courant,  je  culbute  Pierrot,"  etc.  —  Quoted  by 
Klinger,  p.  154,  in  his  excellent  description  of  Pierrot,  to 
which  I  am  indebted  for  much  of  my  description. 

Page  176.*Moland,  in  Moliere  et  la  Comedie  Italienne,  asserts 
that  the  idea  of  this  figure  was  suggested  to  Giraton  by 
Pierrot  in  Moliere's  Bon  Juan.  It  seems  highly  improbable  to 
me  that  the  Italian  actor  learned  to  know  an  old  traditional 
figure  of  his  own  theatre  from  a  modified  copy  of  Moliere. 

Page  176.t  In  .Arlequin  Esope ;  Les  deux  Arlequins ;  TJlysse  et 
Circe;  Les  Promenades  de  Paris,  and  Le  Retour  de  la  Foire  de 
Bezons. 

Page  176.1  The  name  Pantalone  occurs  but  once  in  Gherardi.  I 
have  used  it  as  the  generic  name  of  the  amorosa's  old  father. 
Pierrot  is  his  servant  in  La  Critique  de  la  Cause  desFemmes; 
La  Coquette  :  L' Opera  de  Campagne  ;  Les  Chinois;  Les  Ori- 
ginaux;  Le  Bel  Esprit;  Arlequin,  Befenseur  du  beau  Sexe; 
La  Fatisse  Coquette  ;  La  These  des  Bames.  He  is  the  doctor's 
servant  in  La  Fille  de  bon  Sens;  Les  Bains  de  la  Porte  Saint- 
Bernard;  Pasquin  et  Marforio. 

Page  176.§  G.  V,  41. 

Page  176.11  G.  II,  366. 

Page  177.  Jean  de  France,  V,  2. 

Page  179.  IMd.,  II,  4. 

Page  180.*  Kilde-Rejsen,  III,  i. 

Page  180.t  Mascarade,  I,  2. 


352  NOTES 

Page  1 80.  t  Jule  Stue,  8. 

Page  182.  The  evidence  of  names,  often  tempting,  is  here 
thoroughly  inconclusive.  The  amoroso  was  always  given  the 
stage  name  of  the  actor  who  played  the  part.  In  Gheraixii's 
collection  he  was  called  Leandre  only  in  pieces  43-5  5,  when 
C.  V.  Romagnesi  played  the  part.  Holberg  may  have  hap- 
pened on  the  name  there  or  in  the  two  plays  of  Moliere  in 
which  the  lover  is  called  Leandre.  The  name  was,  in  any  case, 
a  good  one  for  a  lover.  The  evidence  dra^vn  from  the  amoroso 
•is  even  less  convincing.  She  is  usually  called  Isabelle,  although 
she  is  also  called  Olivette,  Angelique,  Lucile,  and  Elise. 

Page  183.  Skavlan,  pp.  191  ff.  He  prefaces  this  characteristic 
sentence  to  his  list :  "If  one  runs  over  Gheraixii's  ThMtre 
Italien,  he  will  find  various  details  which  Holberg  seems  to 
have  borrowed."  See  also  Rahbek,  VI,  passim,  where  he  dis- 
cusses Holberg's  relation  to  Gherardi's  collection  in  this  fi'ag- 
mentary  manner. 

Page  184.  Jupiter  appeal's  in  this  way  in  Le  Divorce^  I?  i  > 
Proteus  and  Glaucus  in  Arlequin  Protee^  G.  I,  69. 

Page  186.  G.  II,  167. 

Page  187.  G.  II,  171.  Thalia  descends  to  perform  a  similar 
office  in  the  prologue  of  Les  Originaux^  G.  IV,  314. 

Page  188.  Firet  printed  in  Schwartz,  Lommebog  for  Skuespil- 
lere,  1786.  For  the  text,  see  Overskou,  I,  190-199.  The  full 
title  of  this  play  was  Den  Dariske  Comedies  Ligbegjaengelse 
med  Thai/as  Afskeedstale^  forstillet  til  allersUdste  Sluting  af 
de  Danske  Acteurs,  den  2  5  Februari  1727.  For  the  text,  see 
Rahbek,  VI,  516-526.  Rahbek  remarks  (p.  528)  on  the  ob- 
vious resemblance  between  these  two  plays. 

Page  191.  For  a  complete  list  of  parodies  of  individual  scenes, 
see  La  Descente  de  Mezzetin  aux  Enfers,  IV;  Les  Aventures 
aux  Champs-Elysees,  III,  4-8  ;  and  La  Naissance  d'Amadis. 

Page  193.*  Ulisse  et  Circe,  I,  9  ;  and  Ulysses  von  Ithacia,  III,  6. 

Page  193.t  Ulisse  et  Circe,  II,  12. 


NOTES  353 

Page  194.  Among  them  is  the  following,  which  seems  to  me 
obvious  (noticed  by  Prutz,  pp.  753  if.):  In  Arlequin,  Em- 
pereur  dans  la  Lune  (G.  I,  753  ff.),  Arlequin,  disguised  as 
the  emperor  of  Uie  moon,  discusses  the  affaire  of  his  realm 
with  a  doctor  and  Columbine.  To  every  bit  of  explanation 
that  he  gives,  either  one  or  the  other  of  his  interlocutoi-s, 
astonished  at  the  identity  of  conditions  there  with  those  on 
the  earth,  exclaims:  "  C'est  tout  comme  ici."  This  phrase 
is  repeated  seven  times.  Finally,  Arlequin  gives  a  long  de- 
scription of  the  society  women  of  the  moon,  which  fits  so 
perfectly  the  women  of  the  world  that  the  doctor  and  Col- 
umbine cry  out  in  amazement:  "C'est  tout  comme  ici."  In 
Ulysses  von  Ithacia,  Chilian  meets  a  Trojan  outside  the  walls 
of  his  city.  This  stranger  explains  conditions  in  Troy,  to 
which  Chilian  replies  with  a  similarly  repeated  "Ligesaa 
hos  os"  ("Just  the  same  with  us  ").  The  Trojan:  "  The 
greatest  virtue  with  us  is  to  waste  more  than  one  can  earn." 
Chilian:  "Just  the  same  with  us,"  etc.  Holberg's  humor- 
ous quip  is  practically  a  translation  of  the  similar  Italian  one. 
It  is  not  Moliere's  illuminative  "Sans  dot,"  or  " Le  pauvre 
homme,"  debased  to  mere  foolish  iteration.  Other  similari- 
ties, such  as  the  following,  are  interesting  only  because  they 
show  how  thoroughly  Holberg  knew  Gherardi's  collection 
and  how  systematically  he  borrowed  from  it  to  enliven  his 
dialogue:  cf.  Arlequin,  Empereur  dans  la  Lune,  G.  I,  131  : 
Arlequin  (to  Doctor):  "Parlez,  etes-vous  de  cette  ville,  ou 
la  ville,  est-elle  de  vous?"  with  Ulysses  von  Ithacia,  V,  2  — 
Chilian:  "God-dag,  Landsmand,er  du  fra  denne  Bye,  eller 
er  denne  Bye  fra  dig?" 

Page  195.  This  very  incident  is  found  in  one  of  Gherardi's 
plays,  Parodie  de  Berenice,  scene  v,  in  Arlequin  Protee  (I,  93, 
94) .  There  Arlequin  is  taking  part  of  Titus  in  parody,  when 
an  old-clothes  man  {fripier)  entere  and  strips  him  of  his 
rented  costume.  This  interruption  ends  the  parody  of  Berenice 
just  as  the  similar  interruption  ends  Holberg's  parody. 

PagQ  200.  For  a  list  of  plays  in  which  she  appeal's,  see  Four- 
nel's  Le  Theatre  au  XVII^  Siecle,  p.  111. 


354  NOTES 

Page  201.  Foumel's  Le  Thedtre  au  XVIF  Silcle^  pp.  400  ff. 

Page  202.  Asinaria^  V,  1,  2. 

Page  203.  This  disguise  may  have  suggested  tlie  similar  one 
in  Den  Forvandlede  Bnidgom.  Not  only  the  disguises  but  also 
the  purposes  of  both  of  them  (to  make  love,  in  the  guise  of 
a  soldier,  to  an  old  woman)  are  alike.  Montfleury's  play  was 
presented  often  during  the  early  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, so  that  Holberg  almost  certainly  knew  it.  In  1 7 1 4,  it  was 
played  four  times ;  in  1715,  twice ;  during  the  years  of  his 
later  stay  in  Paris,  it  seems  not  to  have  been  played  at  all. 

Page  204.  One  of  Rotrou's  comedies  is  curiously  enough 
called  L' Heureux  Naufrage  (1634).  It  is  an  excessively  ro- 
mantic tragi-comedy,  devoted  to  the  love  adventures  of  a 
prince  of  Epirus  who  is  shipwrecked  on  the  Dalmatian  coast. 
Holberg's  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbnid  has  absolutely  no  connec- 
tion with  this  play,  so  that  tlie  identity  of  title  is  probably 
entirely  fortuitous. 

Page  208.  Le  Mercure  Galant,  IV,  3, 

Page  2  12.* See  Winkel-Horn,  p.  158. 

Page  212.t  A  complete  edition  of  Legrand's  works  was  pub- 
lished in  1751.  The  influence  of  his  Pluhis  upon  Holberg, 
therefore,  may  have  been  exerted  through  purely  literary 
channels. 

Page  212.t  Holbergs  Udvalgte  Skrifter,  VI,  427. 

Page  214.  There  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  Holberg  knew  any 
of  the  work  of  Cervantes,  except  Don  Quixote.  To  Rule  a  Wife 
and  to  Have  a  Wife  was  given  at  the  London  theatres  during 
Holberg's  stay  in  England.  Genest  (pp.  3 58,  365,  384)  notes 
the  follovidng  performances  :  ( 1 )  November  30,  1 706,  at  The 
Haymarket;  (2)  February  12,  1707,  at  The  Haymarket; 
(3)  December  1  7,  1  707,  at  The  Drury  Lane. 

Page  216.  Epistler,  V,  166  (Epistle  No.  506  a). 

Page  219.  P^istler^V,  122  (Epistle  No.  493). 


NOTES  355 

Page  223.  Saint- Evremond's  ^/>  Politick  Would-Be  has  often 
been  regarded  as  the  source  of  Holberg's  Den  Politiske  Kan- 
dest0ber  (see  Rahbek,  VI,  26  ff.  ;  Skavlan,  VII,  195;  and 
Albrecht,  Lessings  Plagiate,  I,  662).  The  author  wrote  this 
play  in  England  about  1662,  undoubtedly  in  collaboration 
with  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  M.  d'Aubigny.  (See 
(Euvres,  I,  597.)  These  three  authors  have  consciously  ele- 
vated the  figure  of  Sir  Politick  from  the  subordinate  place 
which  he  holds  in  Ben  Jonson's  Volpone  to  the  central  posi- 
tion in  their  "humour"  comedy.  Holberg  knew  this  play, 
which  he  mentions  at  least  twice  (Just  Jiistesens  Betxnkning 
over  Satiriske  Skrifter,  and  in  Helte  Historier,  I,  176),  call- 
ing it  quite  properly  "en  engelsk  Komedie."  Sir  Politick 
is  much  less  likely  the  prototype  of  Hermann  of  Bremen 
than  another  English  figure,  the  Political  Upholsterer,  whose 
relation  to  the  Political  Tinker  is  discussed  in  chapter  vi, 
page  2  69.  The  situation  in  the  dmouement  of  the  two  plays  is, 
I  admit,  vaguely  alike.  Both  Sir  Politick  and  Hermann  have 
been  encouraged  by  a  plot  of  disguises  to  believe  themselves 
advanced  to  positions  of  honour  and  influence.  Both  dupes 
imagine  persons  of  simple,  even  degraded,  condition  to  possess 
important  social  rank.  Both  make  heroic  efforts  to  receive  their 
guests  with  the  ceremony  that  they  consider  proper.  Yet  Sir 
Politick,  mincing  and  simpering  as  he  forms  the  receiving 
line  in  his  salon  to  greet  the  harlot  whom  he  believes  to  be  the 
wife  of  the  Doge  of  Venice,  is  a  spectacle  different  in  humorous 
kind  from  that  of  Hermann,  spitting  on  his  hands  from  sheer 
excitement  as  he  tries  to  show  his  wife  how  to  make  the  neigh- 
bour's dirty  woolly  dog  behave  like  a  lapdog.  The  social  in- 
competence of  Hermann  and  his  Geske  for  the  parts  of  mayor 
and  wife  is,  then,  only  vaguely  like  the  tawdry  elegance  of  Sir 
Politick.  All  the  similarities  between  the  two  plays  seem,  in- 
deed, unimportant  enough  to  be  regarded  as  fortuitous. 

Page  224.  Each  of  the  assemblies  of  the  chattering  women  was 
published  originally  as  a  separate  work,  all  during  the  year 
1 622.  These  eight  were  first  collected  in  1 723  and  published 
under  the  title  of  Recueil  General  des  Caquets  de  V  Accouchee. 


356  NOTES 

Of  this  collected  work,  six  editions  were  published  between 
the  years  1623  and  1630. 

Page  226.*  Reimpressions  of  the  1499  edition  were  made  in 
Paris,  1595;  Rouen,  1596;  Rouen,  1606;  Lyon,  1607;  and 
Paris,  1620.  Any  one  of  these  editions  may  have  fallen  into 
Holberg's  hands  in  those  libraries  of  Paris  which  he  tells 
us  that  he  visited  day  after  day  during  the  year  1715-16. 
That  general  interest  in  this  satire  had  not  lapsed  in  Holberg's 
time  is  proved  by  two  contemporary  reprints  of  the  1499 
edition  at  The  Hague  in  1726  and  1734.  See  Brunet,  IV, 
1030. 

Page  22 6. t  Les  Quinze  Joyes  de  Manage^  p.  27  :  "  Or  a  grant 
soussi  pour  querir  ce  qu'il  faut  aux  commeres  et  nourrisses 
et  matrones  qui  y  seront  pour  garder  la  dame  tant  comma 
elle  couchera,  qui  beuvront  de  vin  autant  Ten  bouteroit  en 
une  bote." 

Page  231.  Other  relations  which  have  been  thought  to  exist  be- 
tween Holberg's  plays  and  Le  Roman  Comique  (Albrecht,  I, 
6  ;  I,  591)  seem  extremely  fanciful.  The  similarities  between 
Kilde-Reysen  and  the  story  of  Les  Deux  Freres  Rivaux  (Part 
II,  chap,  xix,  ed.  Fournel,  II,  83-1 1 7)  are  very  general  and 
conventional ;  while  those  between  Den  Vaegelsindede  and 
L'Histoire  de  la  Capricieiise  in  Offiray's  Suife  du  Roman  Co- 
mique (ed.  Fournel,  II,  280-290)  are  inexact  and  thoroughly 
unconvincing. 

Page  240.  Terrae  FiliuSy  pp.  108  ff. 

Page  241.  These  ingenious  theories  are  suggested  in  Olsvig, 
Om  Holbergs  saakaldte  Selvbiogra/i,  passim. 

Page  242.  Albert  Thura's  Idea  Hist.  Lift.  Danorum^  quoted 
Olsvig,  col.  16. 

Page  244.  He  states  that  he  has  read  Humphrey  Prideaux, 
Buniet,  and  Rymer's  Fotdera  (Winkel-Horn,  p.  231).  He 
also  shows  familiarity  with  the  follomng  :  Historical  Passages 
from  Private  Passages  of  State.,  1  6 1 8-4  8 ,  by  John  Rushworth , 


NOTES  357 

London,  1659  ;  (2)  The  History  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Lon- 
don for  the  Improvement  of  the  National  Knowledge^  by 
Thomas  Sprat,  1  667  ;  (3)  Account  of  Denmark  as  it  was  in 
the  Year  1  694,  by  Robert  Molesworth,  London,  1  694  ;  (4) 
The  Chronicles  of  the  Kings  of  England^  written  in  the  Man- 
ner of  the  Ancient  Jewish  Historians^  by  Nathan  Ben  Saddi^ 
a  Priest  of  the  Jews,  London,  1740  (this  work  is  not,  to  be 
sure,  serious  history  ;  it  is  merely  a.jeu  d'  esprit  of  some  anony- 
mous cleverling,  whom  Holberg  censures  for  his  impious 
imitation  of  Biblical  style);  (5)  Thomas  Gordon's  English 
translation  of  Tacitus  ;  (6)  The  Trial  and  Sufferings  of  Mr. 
Isaac  Martin,  who  was  put  into  the  Inquisition  in  Spain  for 
the  Sake  of  the  Protestant  Religion,  by  Isaac  Martin,  London, 
172  3  ;  (7)  Travels  and  Observations  relating  to  Several  Parts 
ofBarbary  and  theLevant,hy  Thomas  Shaw, London,  1 738. 
The  general  progress  of  religious  and  philosophical  thought 
in  England  he  seems  to  have  followed  even  more  zealously 
than  the  productions  of  English  historical  scholarship.  "  I 
have  read  everything  that  England  in  our  time  has  vomited 
up  against  reUgion,"  he  says  (Winkel-Horn,  p.  243),  "  but 
whatever  disturbance  Toland,  Collins,  Tindal,  Woolaston, 
The  Moral  Philosopher,  and  othere  waked  in  my  mind, 
others  who  have  boldly  come  to  the  defence  of  the  Christian 
religion  have  set  at  rest."  He  shows  familiarity  with  Bacon's 
Novum  Organum  and  The  New  Atlantis  (Ep.  361 ;  II,  1  67), 
and  with  Ralph  Cud  worth's  The  True  Intellectual  System  of 
the  U?iiverse,  as  well  as  with  Nehemiah  Grew's  objection  to 
this  system  expressed  in  his  Cosmologia  Sacra  (Ep.  50  ;  I, 
50).  He  refers  to  both  Hobbes  and  Locke  (Ep.  144  ;  II, 
204)  ;  to  William  Whiston's  theory  of  the  flood,  given  in 
his  A  New  Theory  of  the  Earth  from  its  Origin  to  the  Con- 
summation of  all  Things  (Ep.  4  ;  I,  118;  also  Ep.  82  ;  II, 
203)  ;  and  to  Newton,  whose  theory  he  rejected  in  favour 
of  the  Cartesian  theory  of  vortices.  He  mentions  favourably 
William  King's  answer  to  Bayle,  De  Origine  Mali  (Ep. 
322;  II,  62).  He  refers  to  Shaftesbury's  Characteristics 
(Ep.  II 9  ;  II,  128),  and  makes  a  long  translation  from  one  of 
the  theological  works  of  George  Hickes  (Ep.  364  ;  II,  176). 


358  NOTES 

Page  246.*  This  entry  has  been  noted  by  a  number  of  students 
of  Holberg;  e.g.^  by  Olsvig  in  his  Otn  Holbergs  saakaldte 
Selvbiografi^  and  in  the  preface  to  the  one-act  drama  on  Hol- 
berg's  life  written  by  Anna  Borch  and  called  HvorforP  Hol- 
bergske  Studie  i  en  Act. 

Page  246. t  Holberg's  firet  serious  historical  investigations  were 
apparently  undertaken  there.  He  says  of  his  Eiiropaeiske  Rigers 
Historie  :  "  Dette  Arbeide  begyndte  jeg  i  England  paa  Bod- 
ley's  Bibliotek,  hvor  der  gaves  mig  rigelig  Adgang  til  at 
benytte  B0ger  tjenlige  til  dette  Brug,"  etc. 

Page  246.JDolbell,  I,  206. 

Page  246.  §  Among  Rawlinson  MS.  Letters  in  the  Bodleian, 
vol.  ii,  letter  ia. 

Page  247.*  Om  Holbergs  saakaldte  Selvbiograjij  col.  155. 

Page  2 4 7.  t  Professor  Schofield  has  suggested  to  me  that  Hol- 
berg's advanced  opinions  about  the  education  and  the  rights  of 
women  developed  while  he  was  in  England.  Elizabetli  Elstob, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  scholar,  was  a  close  friend  of  Dr.  Smal- 
ridge,  Dr.  Hickes,  Humphrey  Wanley,  and  their  associates 
in  the  study  of  Northern  antiquities.  During  the  years  1 706- 
08,  to  be  sure,  she  did  not  live  in  Oxford.  She  was  then  in 
London  with  her  brother,  preparing  her  edition  of  the  Eng- 
lish-Saxon Homily  on  the  Nativity  of  Saint  Gregory,  which 
appeared  in  1709.  All  the  phases  of  that  work,  however, 
were  almost  surely  discussed  by  her  litemry  friends,  patrons, 
and  sponsors  at  Oxford.  One  of  the  most  interesting  of  these 
phases  must  have  been  tlie  question  which  she  considers  at 
length  in  her  preface.  There  she  defends  vigorously  a  wo- 
man's right  to  become  a  scholar,  and  incidentally  explains 
what  she  consider  the  proper  sphere  for  woman.  Holberg 
might  well  have  heard  her  ideas  defended  by  her  patrons  and 
have  thus  learned  to  regard  them  sympathetically.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  every  one  of  Holberg's  arguments  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  woman  he  bases  upon  the  notion  which  Eliza- 
beth Elstob  emphasized,  that  woman's  intellect  is  inferior  to 


NOTES  359 

man's,  not  by  nature,  but  because  of  its  inferior  education. 
This  revolutionary  idea  came  naturally  to  Elizabeth  Elstob, 
who  was  eager  to  justify  her  career  both  to  herself  and  to  the 
world.  Holberg's  enunciation  of  the  same  idea  has  hitherto 
seemed  extraordinary  and  completely  inexplicable. 

Page  248.  Genest  records  performances  of  the  following  plays 
of  Shakespeare  during  the  time  that  Holberg  was  in  England : 
in  tragedy,  Hamlet,  Timo?i  of  jlthens,  King  Lear,  and  Mac- 
beth; in  chronicle  history,  Henry  IV;  in  romantic  comedy. 
The  Tempest ;  in  pure  comedy.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

Page  250.*  Philipsen,  in  Den  Holbergske  Literaturs  Historie  og 
Bibliographi,  pp.  38-41,  indicates  the  three  points  of  sim- 
ilarity that  I  have  mentioned  (along  with  one  more  too  in- 
exact and  trivial  to  notice)  as  existing  between  Jeppe  paa 
Bjerget  and  the  older  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Shakespeare's 
source.  All  of  the  points  do  appear  there  as  well  as  in  Shake- 
speare's play,  but  Holberg  could  have  hit  upon  that  old  play 
only  by  a  miracle  of  chance. 

Page  250. t  July  4,  1706,  and  October  15,  1707,  both  times  at 
The  Haymarket.  These  performances  show  that  the  play  was 
well  knoA^ai  in  Holberg's  London,  in  spite  of  the  fact  (men- 
tioned by  Rahbek,  VI,  164)  that  Steele  {Tatter,  No.  231; 
September  30,  1710)  tells  the  story  of  The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew  as  though  it  were  original  with  him. 

Page  251.*  Mindre  Poetiske  Skrifter,  p.  121. 

Page  25l.t  Genest  records  the  following  performances:  Vol- 
pone,  December  at  The  Haymarket,  and  April  27,  1708,  at 
TheDrury  Lane;  The  Silent  ^owzora,  January  1,  1707,  and 
October  28,1  707,  at  The  Haymarket,  and  April  21,1 708, 
at  The  Drury  Lane  ;  Bartholomew  Fair,  August  1 2  and  Oc- 
tober 22,  1707,  at  The  Haymarket,  and  August  26, 1708, 
at  The  Drury  Lane. 

Page  252.*  I  am  indebted  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Woodbridge's 
excellent  analysis  of  Jonson's  comic  art  (Studies  in  Jonson's 
Comedy)  for  help  in  this  comparison. 


360  NOTES 

Page  252.t  Mermdd  Edition  oi  Farquhar^  Introd.,  p.  26. 

Page  253.  Cf.  Jean  de  France^  I,  2  ;  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbmd, 
I,  3  ;  Ude?i  Hoved  og  Hale^  I,  i ;  Erasmus  Montanus^  I,  pas- 
sim, particularly  6;  Den  Stiindesl0se,  I,  i;  Ben  Honnette  Am- 
bition, 1,2;  Don  Ranudo,  1,2;  Philosophus  udi  egen  Indbild- 
ningj  I,  i;  Den  Politiske  Kandest0ber,  I,  2  ;  Gert  Westphalery 
I,  i ;  Det  Arabiske  Pulver,  Ij  3  ;  and  Jacob  von  Tyboe,  I,  i. 

Page  259.  George Farquhar,  Introd.,  p.  24. 

Page  260,  This  bit  of  imitation  has  already  been  pointed  out 
more  than  once.  See  Skavlan,  p.  196  ;  and  Brandes,  Ludvig 
Holberg,  p.  212. 

Page  262.  The  first  of  these  verses  closes  Pluhis;  the  second, 
Jeppe  paa  Bjerget.  The  following  plays  are  also  closed  by  a 
bit  of  doggerel :  Den  Politiske  Kandestober,  Barselshien,  Jean 
de  France,  Den  Ellefte  Jimii,  Ulysses,  Uden  Hoved  ogHale, 
Hexerie,  Den  Forvandelde  Brudgrom,  Den  StandesUse,  and 
Sganarels  Rejse. 

Page  265.  Werlauff  (p.  14)  calls  attention  in  this  connection 
to  the  tobacco-councils  of  the  Prussian  King,  Friedrich  Wil- 
helm  I,  at  which  news-sheets  were  read  and  commented  upon 
by  the  learned  smokers  assembled.  He  also  mentions  (i&z't?. , 
note  5  )  a  tavern  in  Copenhagen  where  the  guests  used  to  foiTn 
a  Collegium  Politicum,  not  unlike  that  in  Holberg's  play. 

Page  270.  No.  108  ;  suggested  first  by  Olsvigin  Det  store  Ven- 
depunkt  i  Holbergs  Liv,  p.  63. 

Page  272.  The  first  collected  edition  of  The  Tatter  was,  issued  in 
1710-11.  Holberg  may  have  seen  the  original  sheets  of  The 
Spectator,  which  were  published  in  monthly  parts,  or  more 
probably  the  firet  edition  in  octavo,  seven  volumes  of  which 
were  published  during  the  first  months  of  1 7 1  3 ,  and  the  eighth 
in  1715. 

Page  273.  Olsvig,  p.  82. 

Page  276.*  See,  e.^.,  Prutz,  p.  163:  "Esmuss,meinenwir,zu- 
gestanden  werden  dass  Holberg  auch  in  seinen  Dichtungen 


NOTES  361 

zum  mindesten  ebenso  sehr  Moralist  als  Dichter  ist.  .  .  .  Wir 
geben  zu,  dass  dies  sehr  undramatisch  u.  langweilig  ist  und 
wenn  es  der  Holbergschen  Komodie,  trotz  des  unverwust- 
lichen  Kerns  von  komischer  Kraft  u.  Laune  u.  volksthiimli- 
cher  Stimmung  der  darin  steckt,  bei  uns  in  neuerer  Zeit  in 
Ganzen  so  wenig  gelungen  worden  —  so  liegt  das  wohl  zum 
grossten  Theil  eben  in  dieser  moralisirenden  Farbung." 

Page  276. t  Tatler^  Nos.  40,  47,  121. 

Page  283.  Cf.  Tatler,  No.  41  ;  I,  338  (Steele's  defence  of  his 
critical  method) ,  with  the  Det  Lykkelige  Skibbrud,  V,  passim ; 
Tatler,  No.  173  ;  III,  10  ff.  (a  satire  on  the  inefficiency  of  a 
polite  education) ,  with  Den  Shindeshse,  1,5;  Tatler^  Nos.  2  5 , 
26,29,31,33,  and  3 9  (attacks  on  duelling) ,  with  Den  Vaegel- 
sindede.  III,  3. 

Page  289  * Hagedoms  Werke,  V,  291,  292. 

Page  2 8 9. t  The  titles  of  these  four  were:  (l)  Om  Menniskens 
Idraet^  Vandel  og  Maneere  i  disse  Dage;  (2)  Om  Mamodisk 
Klaededragt;  (3)  Om  Alamodisk  Sprog  og  Titter;  (4)  Om 
Poeteri  og  Rimdigter. 

Page  290.  Ed.  Paludan,  p.  101.  Satire  IV,  259  ff. 

Page  291.*  Scene  13. 

Page  291.t  In  this  same  satire,  Lauremberg  ridicules  passing 
fashions  in  speech.  In  a  long  list  he  contrasts  the  good  old 
words  for  many  common  things  with  the  fashionable  equiva- 
lents of  the  day.  See  III,  1 76  ff.  Cf.  the  following  lines  which 
the  Danish  translator  left  in  the  original  even  in  his  version  : 

Wol  da  ein  Schlungel  was,  de  is  nu  ein  Cojon, 
Wat  damals  was  fort,  fort,  is  nu  allohu,  allohu. 

Contrasts  of  exactly  this  sort  are  frequently  made  in  Hol- 
berg.  Cf.  Erasmus  Montanus^  I,  2,  where  Jeppe  says  :  "In 
my  youth  people  didn't  talk  here  the  way  they  do  now.  What 
used  to  be  called  a  'boy'  they  now  call  a  'laquey,'"  etc. 

Page  291.1  Skavlan  (p.  196)  suggests  that  Jean  de  France  has 


362  NOTES 

been  modelled  on  Wycherley's  M.  de  Paris,  in  the  Gejitle- 
man  Dancing  Master.  Yj.  GegSis[K0benhavnI)agbladei,  1884, 
No.  172)  believes  Jean  de  France  to  be  an  imitation  of 
Moreto's  El  Lhido  Bon  Diego.  Tliis  seems  a  priori  a  very 
improbable  source,  and  considering  the  existence  of  Lau- 
remberg's  satire,  ridiculously  remote. 

Page  292.* I,  6. 

Page  292. t  Of  the  periodicals  Der  Politische  Stockjisch  (II,  2) 
and  Der  Europaeische  Herold  (I,  4),  and  of  the  novels  Her- 
cules (I,  2),  —  called  Heradus  by  Henrich, — Der  Politische 
Nachtisch  (I,  4),  and  Herculiscus  are  mentioned. 

Page  293.*  The  full  title  is  Das  Verwirrte  Haus  Jacob  oder  das 
Gesicht  der  bestraften  Rebellion  an  Stielcke  und  Liitze. 

Page  293.t  Gaedertz,  I,  183;  repeated  by  Albrecht  in  his  Less- 
ings  Plagiate,  I-II,  583,  with  his  usual  amusing  animus. 

Page  293.1  Holberg  uses  this  same  name,  spelled  a  little  differ- 
ently, for  one  of  the  numerous  women  in  his  Barselstueti,  II, 
12  (Gedske  Klokkers). 

Page  296.  The  plays  were  not  often  printed.  For  texts,  see 
R.  C.  Prutz,  Vorlesungen  ilber  die  Geschichte  des  deutschen 
Theaters,  Berlin,  1847,  pp.  197-205. 

Page  297.  For  an  account  of  this  man,  seeWerlauff,  Historiske 
Antegnelser,  pp.  290  ff. 

Page  300.  See  Werlauff,  p.  300,  note  29. 

Page  301.*  See  Holbergs  Forhold  til  det  aeldre  tyske  Drama, 
pp.  5  6  ff.  A  fuller  title  of  the  opera  that  he  mentions  was 
Ulysses,  in  einemmusicalischenSchauspiel  .  .  .  auffgefilhret. 

Page  301.t  Compare,  for  example,  his 

Ich  will  mich  nicht  dem  Henker  drauf  ergeben. 

Einjunges  Weib 

Kann  ohne  Manner  Zeitvertreib 

JVicht  so  vielJahre  leben, 

with  Ulysses  von  Ithacia,  V,  1,2. 


NOTES  363 

Page  302.  These  comedies  were  almost  surely  The  Clouds  and 
Plutus,  both  of  which  he  could  have  read  in  Madame  Dacier's 
French  translation  of  1688. 

Page  303.  Epistle,  557;  V,  16.  This  reference  to  Regnard's 
play  seems  perfectly  gratuitous.  The  play  appeal's  to  have  had 
no  influence  on  Holberg. 

Page  304.  Les  Esprits,  a  comedy  by  Pierre  de  Larivey  (for  the 
text,  see  E.  Fournier,  Le  Thedtre  Franqais  au  XVP  et  au 
XVIF  Siecle,  pp.  5  7-89),  introduces  a  servant  playing  the 
same  trick  of  disguise  into  a  situation  plainly  like  that  in 
the  Mostellaria  (II,  2).  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  infer 
that  Holberg  knew  and  copied  this  play  of  Larivey,  for,  like 
all  his  plays,  and  like  his  very  name,  for  that  matter  (L' Ar- 
rive is  a  translation  of  the  Italian  Giunto,  tlie  name  of  the 
playwright's  parents),  it  is  taken  from  the  Italian,  namely 
from  Lorenzino  de  Medici's  Aridosio.  The  first  thing  that 
would  occur  to  any  Italian  writing  a  version  of  the  Mostellaria, 
would  be  to  introduce  into  it  the  exceedingly  common  de- 
vice of  the  commedia  deW  arte.  And  Holberg  introduced  the 
same  device  because  he,  too,  was  very  familiar  with  Italian 
comedy,  and  not  because  he  copied  an  obscure  French  play. 

Page  305 .  Skavlan  (p.  1 76)  points  out  that  this  name  is  a  trans- 
lation of  Pyrgopolinices. 

Page  306.  Curculio  (IV,  2),  like  Henrich  himself,  imperson- 
ates the  servant  of  the  blustering  captain,  and  so,  like  him, 
gets  the  slave  girl  into  his  own  hands.  Planesium  learns  by  a 
ring  that  Curculio  possesses  that  she  is  a  sister  of  the  brag- 
gart soldier,  and  so,  like  Hyacinthe,  is  a  free  woman. 

Page  308.  The  following  are  two  of  his  famous  witticisms: 

Is  ubi  molestus  magis  est,  quaeso,  inquam.  Strata, 
Eone  esferox,  quia  habes  imjierium  inbelluas. 

EuNUCHus,  I,  414,  415. 

Quid  agis,  inquam,  homo  impudens 
Eefius  tute  es,  et  Jndfiaman  turn  quaeris. 

Ibid.,  I,  425,  426. 


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